South Korea stocks surge more than 5% for best session since March 2020 after short-selling ban

South Korea's office market is booming as the country bucks remote working trends.

Seoul maintained a low prime office vacancy rate of 3.4% in the third quarter, according to a report by Savills, a real estate services firm. Transactions totaled 2.6 trillion South Korean won ($2 billion) during the period, with year-to-date volume reaching 7.3 trillion South Korean won, the report said.

"The Korean office market has been one of the strongest in the world ... we're seeing, you know, strong rent growth, strong underlying fundamentals, relatively good supply demand tricks, and low vacancies," Ray Lawler, Asia-Pacific CEO at Hines, a real estate company, told CNBC's "Street Signs Asia."

Lawler added that South Korea's office market is a "real outlier" and is "swimming against the tides globally."

Hines currently has about $1.7 billion invested in real estate across Seoul and Busan. Going forward, the company expects to expand its investments in South Korea.

— Quek Jie Ann

Southeast Asia's largest lender DBS Group reported a 17% jump in third-quarter profit on Monday, benefiting from a high-interest rate environment.

Shares of the lender rose 0.45% in early afternoon trading.

Net profit rose to 2.63 billion Singaporean dollars ($1.94 billion) during the quarter, compared to SG$2.24 billion a year ago.

It was higher that analysts' estimates compiled by LSEG, which predicted a quarterly profit of SG$2.5 billion for the July to September quarter.

The Singapore bank also declared a dividend of 48 Singapore cents for each ordinary share for the third quarter.

Click here to read the full story.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

South Korean stocks jumped after financial authorities said they will be re-imposing a ban on short-selling until the end of June 2024. Short-selling is when a trader sells borrowed shares to buy back at a lower price and pocket the difference.

The ban will restrict short selling of all Kospi, Kosdaq and Konex listed stocks. The curbs were lifted in May 2021 for trades involving the shares of large-cap companies, mostly included in the Kospi.

"We seek to fundamentally resolve the 'tilted playing field' between organizations and individuals," Financial Services Commission Chairman Kim Joo-hyun said in a press release.

The Kospi jumped 3.93%, while the Kosdaq surged 5.88%.

This comes after a report in mid-October said South Korea's stock market watchdog found two Hong Kong-based investment banks had engaged in naked short-selling, that was expected to have resulted in record fines. Naked short selling is when an investor shorts a stock or other security without borrowing first.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Japan's business activity expanded in October but at its softest pace this year, according to a private survey.

The au Jibun Bank final composite purchasing manager's index was at 50.5 in October, signaling a tenth successive monthly increase in private sector business activity but down from 52.1 in September.

The headline au Jibun Bank Japan Services Business Activity index expanded for the fourteenth straight month in October, coming in at 51.6 but down from 53.8 in September.

Both readings pointed to the weakest expansion so far in 2023.

The survey said there were further signs of slowing expansion amid softening demand conditions, while business confidence also eased in October.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

The "Magnificent Seven" stocks — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and Tesla — have proved popular this year, but one growth investor says he is underweight the group.

"The Magnificent has done well and are poised to continue to do well because they have [a] fortress-like balance sheets and they're highly profitable. They used the past two years post Covid to get more efficient, but they also have tremendous opportunities ahead in terms of artificial intelligence," Jonathan Curtis told CNBC's "" on Friday.

However, he said investors needed to be a "little bit more curious and more cautious" on the tech mega-caps -- and revealed his favorite with "tremendous growth potential."

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Amala Balakrishner

An upturn in a corner of the semiconductor industry began in the second half of this year, according to Citi.

The jump in September's monthly semiconductor sales beat Citi's estimates. It was up 13% month on month to $49.6 billion, higher than the bank's estimates of $46.9 billion, the bank said.

CNBC takes a look at five of its top stock picks.

Subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

The Labor Department said Friday that the U.S. economy added 150,000 in October. That's slightly below a Dow Jones forecast of 170,000.

Average hourly earnings, a closely watched data point in the report for inflation trends, rose 0.2% last month. That's also a smaller-than-expected increase. The unemployment, meanwhile, climbed to 3.9% versus a forecast of 3.8%.

— Fred Imbert

Friday's jobs report coming in below expectations bolsters the argument that the Federal Reserve is done raising interest rates, said Goldman Sachs chief economist Jan Hatzius.

"I thought it was broadly weaker than what we expected," Hatzius said of the report on CNBC's "Squawk on the Street." But, "I don't think it was weak in a very concerning way."

Hatzius said the print supported the argument of those expecting that the central bank was done increasing interest rates in the current monetary policy cycle following its meeting earlier in the week. While he said Goldman isn't expecting the Fed to cut rates until the fourth quarter of next year, he said the central bank could starting pulling them down if the economy weakens more sharply before then.

"It was a softer report that I think underscores the message that the market took out of the FOMC meeting this week — namely, that the Fed is very likely done hiking," he said, using the acronym for the Federal Open Market Committee.

— Alex Harring

The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT) is on track for its third straight positive day as Treasury yields decline.

The TLT was up 1.2% in afternoon trading, meaning that the fund was already up more than 5% in November, which kicked off with Wednesday's Fed meeting.

TLT saw heavy inflows and trading activity in October, as some investors appeared to be betting on a rebound for the fund after yields rose above 5%.

— Jesse Pound