Hong Kong, Shenzhen down 2%, leading Asia losses and partly dragged by tech stocks

India's benchmark BSE Sensex reached a record high on Wednesday, gaining 0.15% from the beginning of the trading day to reach 63,442.83.

Similarly, the Nifty 50 has gained momentum as well and has surpassed its previous high of 18,812.50 achieved on Dec. 1 2022, and now stands at 18,829.15.

There has been a growing interest to investing in India as more investors look to diversify out of China.

— Charmaine Jacob

Shares of Japanese investment company SoftBank Group jumped about 3.6% after chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son said the company will go into "offense mode" in terms of investment strategy.

Saying that it wants to capitalize on the artificial intelligence boom, Son said he intends SoftBank to deploy its current cash on hand into investments.

"In the past few years, we focused on being [on] 'defense.' Three years ago, we didn't have a lot of cash on hand. But because we have been in defense mode, we have built our cash on hand to five trillion yen ($35.3 billion)," Son said.

— Lim Hui Jie

Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese tech giant Alibaba fell over 3% on Wednesday, extending its losses and mirroring similar moves in its U.S.-listed stock overnight.

Alibaba's U.S. stock slid 4.53% on Tuesday after the announcement that Eddie Wu, one of the firm's co-founders, will replace CEO Daniel Zhang — who is stepping down to focus on Alibaba's cloud business.

Earlier in March, Alibaba said it was splitting its firm into six business groups.

— Lim Hui Jie, Sarah Min

South Korea's producer prices index for May rose 0.6% year-on-year, lower than April's figure of 1.6%.

This puts the index at 120.14, slightly lower than the 120.5 recorded in April.

The PPI measures the average movements of prices received by domestic producers for goods and services sold.

The Korean won weakened by 0.12% after the announcement to trade at 1,289.67 against the dollar.

— Lim Hui Jie

Business sentiment among large Japanese manufacturers remained in positive territory for a second-straight month in May, according to the Reuters tankan survey.

The manufacturing index rose to +8, higher than the +6 recorded in May. Separately, the non-manufacturing index dipped slightly to +24, hovering near the year high of +25 recorded in April.

The survey rates the relative level of general business conditions, with a level above zero indicating improving conditions and a level below zero indicating worsening conditions.

The Reuters tankan survey is a monthly survey of leading Japanese companies, and the monthly figures are designed to provide early indications of the Bank of Japan's quarterly tankan survey. 

— Lim Hui Jie

Stocks are rallying, and investors may be wondering if there's more upside ahead.

According to Tom Lee, managing partner of Fundstrat Global Advisors, the answer is yes for these three areas.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

Goldman Sachs expects an oversupply in the global market of battery parts for electric vehicles to have major implications for four major companies.

Of those, the Wall Street bank predicts that one battery component maker's stock will halve, while another's will rise by 32% over the next 12 months.

The investment bank said cathodes, a part of a battery that attracts positive charge, are increasingly being seen as a commodity. This means that many companies are producing similar kinds of cathodes, which could lead to an overabundance. Such oversupply typically means companies must lower prices to stay competitive and potentially squeeze their profits.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

The U.S.-listed shares of Alibaba dropped 4.9% during midday trading. The move comes after the Chinese e-commerce giant said Eddie Wu, one of the firm's co-founders, will replace CEO Daniel Zhang, who is stepping down to focus on Alibaba's cloud business.

In March, Alibaba said it was splitting its firm into six business groups.

— Sarah Min

Nvidia's stock was swimming upstream on Tuesday, gaining about 1% even as the major indexes slumped.

This would mark the seventh positive session in eight for Nvidia, which is now up nearly 200% for the year. The stock still has a buy or strong buy rating from 41 of 49 analysts who cover the company, according to Refinitiv.

— Jesse Pound

Energy was the biggest laggard in the S&P 500, with the sector falling more than 2%.

Leading decliners included Devon Energy and APA, both of which were down more than 4%. Marathon Oil, Halliburton and EOG Resources declined more than 3% each.

— Sarah Min