Japan's Nikkei hits 33-year high as Asia markets rebound

Japan's Nikkei 225 hit a fresh 33-year high Tuesday, driven mostly by tech stocks. The index scaled an intraday peak of 33,969.17, its highest level since March 1990.

Top gainers on the Nikkei were chip-related stocks, that tracked gains in U.S. peers Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

Semiconductor company Tokyo Electron and chip equipment supplier Advantest climbed as much as 4.87% and 8.36%, respectively.

Video-game company Nintendo was also among the top performers, gaining as much as 4.7%, as news swirled that the company might release a new game console this year.

— Lim Hui Jie

Australia's retail sales surged 2% in November compared with the previous month, beating expectations from economists polled by Reuters.

The 2% increase was sharply higher than the 1.2% gain expected by the Reuters poll, and also a reversal from the 0.2% fall in October.

"The strong rise suggests that consumers held back on discretionary spending in October to take advantage of discounts in November," Robert Ewing, ABS head of business statistics at the Australian statistics bureau said.

"Shoppers may have also brought forward some Christmas spending that would usually happen in December," he added.

— Lim Hui Jie

South Korean electronics giant Samsung Electronics said it expects to post a 35% drop in operating profit in the fourth quarter of 2023, missing expectations by a wide margin.

Samsung said that for the October-December quarter, operating profit was likely to be 2.8 trillion South Korean won ($2.13 billion), down 35% from the same period a year earlier when the firm reported an operating profit of 4.31 trillion won. Operating profit was 2.43 trillion won in the previous quarter.

The profit forecast fell far short of LSEG's SmartEstimate of 3.7 trillion won, which is weighted more heavily toward expectations of analysts who have been consistently more accurate.

Fourth-quarter revenue likely fell 4.9% from the same period a year ago to 67 trillion won, the firm said in the statement.

— Sheila Chiang

The headline inflation rate for Japan's capital city of Tokyo slowed to 2.4% in December, from 2.6% in the month before.

Inflation rate has declined for a second straight month and is at its lowest level in 18 months.

Tokyo's core inflation — which strips out prices of fresh food — remained unchanged at 2.1% in December, and came in line with expectations.

— Lim Hui Jie

Nvidia has been an investor favorite when it comes to artificial intelligence.

But other tech companies have also been busy building up their capabilities in the area — and one of them has been underappreciated by the market, according to one strategist.

"But if you do get downside, if you see more weakness from what we had in the first half of the year, continue building a position because this is a high quality name with a fortress balance sheet," he said.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

Internet stocks in Europe are set for gains in 2024 — thanks to improving fundamentals and falling interest rates, according to Morgan Stanley.

The Wall Street bank's analysts said they're "positive on the sector" because of customer growth, cost discipline at companies, and valuations being supported by declining interest rates.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more about the investment bank's stock picks here.

— Ganesh Rao

U.S. crude oil fell more than 4% on Monday after Saudi Arabia slashed prices for its key crude product, renewing concerns that global demand is weakening.

The West Texas Intermediate futures contract for February lost $3.04, or 4.12%, to settle at $70.77. The Brent futures contract for March shed $2.64, or 3.35%, to settle at $76.12.

The selloff came after Saudi Aramco slashed prices for Arab Light crude to Asian customers by $2 a barrel.

The Saudis are trying to defend their market share in the face of record U.S. production and cheap barrels from Iran and Russia, said Bob Yawger, energy futures strategist at Mizuho.

"Obviously they're hitting the panic button a little," Yawger told CNBC.

"You're getting closer and closer to a 2020 situation here where they try to claw back market share by cutting everything to bare bones minimum and sparking a price war," he said.

— Spencer Kimball

Consumer inflation expectations continued to trend lower in December, with the one-year outlook hitting its lowest since January 2021, according to a New York Federal Reserve survey released Monday.

The central bank's Survey of Consumer Expectations saw expectations decline at the one-year horizon to 3%, down from 3.4% a month ago. The three-year outlook dipped to 2.6% from 3%, while the five-year horizon slipped to 2.5%, down 0.2 percentage point from November.

Expectations for food and rent costs declined, while the outlook for gasoline was unchanged at 4.5%. Household spending expectations nudged down to 5%, off 0.2 percentage point from the previous month.

—Jeff Cox

Nvidia's stock popped more than 4% to trade near an all-time high after revealing three new AI chips aimed at running AI from home. Shares also headed for their best day since August.

The new graphics processing units, known as the RTX 4060 Super, RTX 4070 Ti Super and RTX 4080 Super, will range in price between $599 and $999. While primarily designed for gaming, the graphics cards can also power AI applications and run on PCs and laptops.

These chips will also comply with the export controls on China.

— Samantha Subin, Kif Leswing

Crypto related equities rose Monday afternoon as the price of bitcoin climbed to its highest level since April 2022.

Crypto exchange Coinbase rose 3%, while Block and Robinhood, which also offer bitcoin trading services, added 3% and 5%, respectively. Mining stocks enjoyed bigger gains. Marathon Digital and Riot Platforms advanced 8% each. CleanSpark and Iris Energy both added 6%.

On Monday bitcoin rallied more than 6% to above $47,000 as BlackRock, Grayscale and other potential bitcoin ETF issuers submitted final updates to the Securities and Exchange Commission, including key fee disclosures that bolstered investors confidence that an approval is more likely than not.

— Tanaya Macheel