Asia wrap: The golden carousel turns as Japan’s new era beckons

Markets across Asia opened like a carnival of contrasts — gold glittering under the tent lights, chip stocks spinning in a dizzying whirl of speculation, and the yen bowing low before a newly minted ringmaster in Tokyo. It’s the kind of session that reminds traders how quickly the mood music rises when fiscal fireworks, AI euphoria, and a weaker yen collide under one roof.

Japan remains center stage. The Nikkei — already giddy from Monday’s 4.8% leap — tacked on another 0.7%, brushing fresh record highs as the market continued to price in the dawn of a pro-stimulus premiership under Sanae Takaichi. Her rise is already rewriting the country’s risk map: the yen hovers above ¥150, bond yields climb, and equities dance higher on the promise of looser purse strings. A well-received 30-year JGB auction, the first under this new political constellation, hinted that investors may be willing to tolerate higher yields — so long as Tokyo’s fiscal circus delivers the growth show it promises.

Yet the choreography is delicate. In naming former finance minister Shunichi Suzuki as LDP secretary-general and restoring Taro Aso to vice-president, Takaichi is stitching together fiscal credibility with political gratitude. Her cabinet appears to strike a careful balance between the lingering ghosts of Abenomics and a new generation determined to steer the flood rather than be swept away by it. Traders can see the contours of a “controlled reflation,” but they also sense that the bond market won’t sit quietly once the drums of spending begin to thunder — that will be the true litmus test.

Meanwhile, the region’s chipmakers are running hotter than a Tokyo yakitori grill. AMD’s blockbuster tie-up with OpenAI has reignited the global semiconductor trade, while whispers of Nvidia’s $100 billion push into AI infrastructure make the sector feel less like an industry and more like a religion. Capital is rushing in from venture funds, balance sheets, and increasingly exotic financing channels — the kind that once birthed the late-1990s dot-com dreamscape. The market is drunk on data-center ambition, but old hands know this kind of party often ends with the lights flickering.

Beyond Japan, the backdrop is anything but serene. A lingering U.S. government shutdown, a political storm in France, and the unsettling drumbeat of fiscal stress have pushed investors into the arms of old-world refuges. Gold, that ancient store of mistrust, has now surged more than 50 % this year — its best run since 1979 — and is flirting with a new psychological summit. Goldman now talks of $4,900 by 2026, but in truth, the momentum is as much about faith as fundamentals. When traders begin to see gold as safer than the dollar itself, you know something in the global covenant has cracked. Bitcoin, ever the high-beta twin of distrust, has joined the waltz — vaulting to fresh highs on the same “debasement trade” narrative that casts fiat as a fading franchise.

So Asia’s trading floors find themselves suspended between two poles — the exuberance of technological revolution and the unease of monetary exhaustion. Japan’s new political dawn offers a local spark, but the glow illuminating the region’s screens is still powered by liquidity, leverage, and a fair dose of hope. The golden carousel is turning again; the question, as always, is who’s holding the reins when the music stops.