Asia markets mixed as Japan's inflation rises slightly in June

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world's largest chipmaker, fell 3.11% in morning trade on Friday after posting its first quarterly net income decline in 4 years.

On Thursday, TSMC posted a 10% decline in second quarter revenue from a year ago to NT$480.84 billion, while net income fell 23.3% from a year ago to NT$181.8 billion.

Despite exceeding market expectations, the company's shares still fell.

The firm said that business was affected by macroeconomic conditions which decreased demand for electronics. TSMC produces chips for some of the largest names in smartphones and laptops.

— Sheila Chiang

Hong Kong's consumer price index grew 1.9% year on year in June, the second straight month that the inflation rate in the city has slowed.

Hong Kong's census and statistics department said the largest year on year increases were seen in prices of alcoholic drinks and tobacco, which climbed 18.7%.

Prices of electricity, gas and water also saw the second largest increase, rising 13.3%. On the other hand, prices of durable goods fell 3.7% in June.

— Lim Hui Jie

South Korea's producer price index fell 0.2% year on year in June, lower than the 0.5% rise in May and the first month since November 2020 that the index has sunk into contraction territory.

The producer price index measures the average change in price of goods and services sold by manufacturers and producers in the wholesale market.

On a month on month basis, the PPI saw a 0.2% fall in June, shallower than the 0.4% fall in May,  the Bank of Korea said.

In June, prices of coal and petroleum products were 3.7% lower than the previous month and agricultural products were 1.3% lower, but utility prices rose 1.8% compared to May

— Lim Hui Jie

Japan's core consumer price index climbed by 3.3% year on year in June, in line with expectations of economists polled by Reuters and slightly higher than the 3.2% recorded in May.

The core inflation rate strips out prices of fresh food from the overall consumer price index. The country's headline inflation rate also came in at 3.3% in June, rising slightly from 3.2% seen in May.

This is the 15th straight month that the inflation rate is above the Bank of Japan's 2% target, but BOJ governor Kazuo Ueda signaled in a recent Reuters report the BOJ's ultra-loose monetary policy could be maintained for now, saying "there was still some distance to sustainably and stably achieving the central bank's 2% inflation target."

— Lim Hui Jie

One global chipmaker is set to benefit from an "outsized growth opportunity" on the back of the artificial intelligence trend, says Richard Clode, fund manager at Janus Henderson Investors.

"Ultimately, when you look out in three years time, your iPhone is going to have to have a huge amount of AI capability. Every laptop, PC, car is going to have to have AI capability and what's going to give all of those devices AI capability — [is] having more powerful semiconductors in them," he told CNBC's Pro Talks on Wednesday.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

In a market where passive investment often holds sway, a select few actively managed ETFs have consistently outperformed their respective benchmarks.

CNBC Pro identified 15 exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from various sectors worldwide have posted returns exceeding their benchmarks by more than 15 percentage points this year, despite the uncertainty hovering over global financial markets.

The funds have outstripped broad market indices, providing investors with returns far exceeding those passively managed counterparts.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

The 30-stock Dow is beating the Nasdaq 100 on Thursday, outperforming it by as much as 2.5 percentage points.

That is the widest gap between the two indexes since February 2022.

Strong quarterly results from Johnson & Johnson, in which the health-care giant beat on earnings, helped propel the blue-chip average. Indeed, shares popped 6%. Goldman Sachs and Boeing are also up more than 2%. Each of those three stocks are good for at least 30 points on the Dow. Meanwhile, Tesla's 9% decline is dragging on the Nasdaq 100.

Even as the Dow is on its way to a ninth day of gains – its longest winning streak since September 2017 – it's still only up 6.4% in 2023, compared to the Nasdaq 100's jump of 41%.

-Darla Mercado, Nick Wells

Johnson & Johnson shares rose more than 1% in the premarket after the company posted better-than-expected second-quarter results.

The pharmaceutical and consumer goods giant earned an adjusted $2.80 per share on revenue of $25.53 billion. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected a profit of $2.62 per share on revenue of $24.62 billion.

J&J also raised its full-year outlook.

— Fred Imbert, Annika Kim Constantino

Despite a mixed quarterly print, Netflix's latest results seemed to prove some Wall Street analysts wrong on the subscriber front.

The company on Wednesday reported second-quarter results that missed revenue expectations, but showed stronger-than-expected earnings and an 8% jump in subscriptions as its crackdown on password sharing took off.

For the period, Netflix added 5.9 billion new subscriptions, well above many Wall Street estimates. Heading into the print, some analysts had been cautious on Netflix's subscriber growth, with Jefferies analyst Andrew Uerkwitz and Wells Fargo's Steven Cahall saying that estimates look too high.

Both analysts had said they were bracing for a post-earnings pullback, but that investors should consider using short-term pressure as a buying opportunity.

— Samantha Subin

Individual investor enthusiasm for stocks climbed to 51.4% in the latest weekly survey by the American Association of Individual Investors, up from 41.0% bullishness last week, and the seventh straight week bullish sentiment landed above its long-term historical average of 37.5%.

The latest week's optimism was the highest since April 2021, when it stood at 52.7%. Similiarly, the seven-week above average score was the longest stretch of unabashed optimism since February-May of 2021.

Conversely, bearish opinion that stocks will fall in price over the next six months dropped to 21.5%, the lowest since June 2021, from 25.9% last week, and the seventh week in a row bearishness was below its historical average of 31.0%. The seven-week stretch is the longest since a 23-week streak that lasted from February to July of 2021.

Bearish sentiment "is nearing the bottom of its typical range," the AAII said. The past year's high in bearishness came last September, when 60.9% of investors thought the future outlook for stocks was grim — less than one month before the bear market bottom.

Neutral opinion narrowed to 27.1% of investors polled in the latest week vs 33.1% last week.

— Scott Schnipper