TOKYO - Japan's Nikkei share average topped its all-time peak on Thursday, after unexpectedly strong revenue forecasts from US chip designer Nvidia lifted Asian tech stocks.
Long-term US bond yields hugged three-month highs while the dollar sagged after minutes from the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting confirmed the view that interest rate cuts would be slow in coming, but weren't markedly more hawkish than the Fed's previously expressed views.
The Nikkei 225 share average closed 2.19 percent higher at 39,098.68, and earlier rose as high as 39,156.97, topping the previous all-time closing and intraday highs set on Dec 29, 1989, at the peak of the so-called bubble economy.
"Given robust corporate earnings without frothy valuations reminiscent of the last time Japanese equities were this high, a weakening yen backdrop, along with the market responding well to the government's tilt towards greater corporate governance, it's little surprise that investor sentiment remains very positive and Japanese equities continue to surge," said Joe Lin, executive director for investments at Golden Equator Wealth.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.56 percent, helped by gains of around 1 percent for both Taiwan's stock benchmark.
US stock index futures signaled solid gains, following a mixed session on Wednesday for the main benchmarks. S&P 500 futures rallied 0.75 percent and tech-focused Nasdaq futures jumped 1.46 percent.
Following the closing bell overnight, Nvidia forecast a roughly 233 percent surge in quarterly revenue, sending its shares up some 10 percent after-hours.
"US futures are up, strong - that's just Nvidia, right there," said Kyle Rodda, senior markets analyst at Capital.com.
"Equities more broadly are following in the slipstream."
The Nikkei has jumped nearly 17 percent already this year, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq rallying some 5 percent each, driven in large part by mammoth expectations for artificial intelligence (AI), with Nvidia's chips at the center of that boom.
"Nvidia's earnings beat boosted sentiment and eased concerns over stretched valuations, providing room for the AI theme to continue to drive markets," Saxo Markets analysts wrote in a research note.
The 10-year US Treasury yield eased slightly in Asian time on Thursday to 4.3069 percent, but remained close to the 4.332 percent level marked a week ago, which had not been seen since the end of November.
The bulk of policymakers at the US Federal Reserve's last meeting in January were concerned about the risks of cutting interest rates too soon, with broad uncertainty about how long borrowing costs should remain at their current level, minutes released on Wednesday showed.
That reinforced the view among traders that any rate cut is not imminent, with market pricing suggesting one-in-three odds for a first reduction in May, according to CME Group's FedWatch Tool.
The dollar continued to retreat from a three-month high reached last week, when the US dollar index, which tracks the currency against six major peers, reached 104.97. It was down 0.12 percent at 103.86 in Asian trading on Thursday.
The euro ticked up 0.14 percent to $1.08345, and sterling added 0.08 percent to $1.2647, whereas the yen was flat at 150.275 per dollar.
Elsewhere, oil prices rose, adding to gains from the previous session that came amid signs of tighter supply.
US West Texas Intermediate crude futures (WTI) gained 25 cents to $78.16 a barrel, while Brent added 24 cents to $83.27 a barrel.
Oil prices rose 1 percent on Wednesday, with refinery restarts in the United States supporting demand after a series of outages earlier cut US refinery utilization rates to the lowest level in two years.
