10-year Treasury yield climbs to 4.99% as a December Fed rate hike comes into view

Asian markets mostly rose Wednesday as TSMC reported October revenue nearly six times higher than a year earlier, with Taiwan leading the regional gains. U.S. futures edged higher and oil prices rose, while Wall Street had retreated Tuesday after U.S. inflation rose above expectations in October.

Taiwan’s benchmark Taiex rose 2.1%, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., the AI chipmaker, gained 3.1%. AP said the revenue result showed that demand for AI chips remained solid.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 advanced 0.8% to 60,942.48. SoftBank Group fell 3.7% after the investment giant reported a quarterly net loss of 1.1 trillion yen ($7 billion) on Tuesday after markets closed.

South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.6% to 5,321.10. Chipmaker Samsung Electronics gained 2.3% and SK Hynix jumped 3.4%.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng fell 0.7% to 24,381.84, while the Shanghai Composite slid 0.3% to 3,653.86, erasing early gains. China’s biggest online shopping festival, Singles’ Day, began Wednesday. Its sales data will offer a gauge of consumer demand in the world’s second-largest economy. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged up 0.1% to 9,132.30.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 slipped 0.4% on Tuesday and gave back some of its rally from the day before. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.3%, and the Nasdaq composite sank 0.7%. Bond-market pressure undercut stocks after the inflation report showed that prices for groceries, electricity and other living costs were higher in October than economists expected.

The report could push the Federal Reserve to raise its main interest rate at its December meeting. Higher rates can help rein in inflation, but they make borrowing more expensive, slow the overall economy and reduce investors’ willingness to pay high prices for stocks and other investments.

Fed official hints at larger December move as Anthropic seeks roughly $1.3 trillion valuation

One Federal Reserve official hinted that the central bank may increase the federal funds rate by double the typical amount in December because inflation has remained high for years. The yield on the 10-year Treasury jumped to 4.99% from 4.88% late Monday. The move was notable for the bond market, and the yield helps set rates for mortgages and other loans going to U.S. households and businesses.

Tuesday’s jump in yields came even though oil prices fell again, with Brent crude down 1.2% to $91.49 a barrel. President Donald Trump said late Monday that the war in Iran, which had sent oil prices much higher, “militarily is effectively over.”

Nvidia, the heaviest weight on the S&P 500, fell 5.5%. The chip designer has been under pressure since its board announced an investigation into CEO Jensen Huang following revelations of his affair with a purported Chinese spy. Trump said the FBI is investigating the affair, which Huang has acknowledged and apologized for.

Recent shakiness in AI-related stocks has raised questions about whether Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, may delay its initial public offering. In a filing with U.S. regulators on Tuesday, Anthropic said it was seeking a valuation of roughly $1.3 trillion. That would make Anthropic one of the most valuable companies on Wall Street, worth more than Walmart, JPMorgan Chase, ExxonMobil or Coca-Cola.

In other dealings early Wednesday, Brent crude, the international standard, rose 1% to $92.42 a barrel, while U.S. benchmark crude gained 0.6% to $86.55 per barrel.

The U.S. dollar rose to 158.90 Japanese yen from 158.70 yen, while the euro fell to $1.1167 from $1.1171.