TOKYO -- Global stocks were mixed on Thursday, with European markets gaining after most major Asian benchmarks fell apart from Tokyo.
France's CAC 40 rose 0.2% to 8,109.40. Germany's DAX rose 0.3% to 18,742.83, while Britain's FTSE 100 was steady at 8,373.25.
The future of the S.&The P 500 rose 0.5%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was almost unchanged.
In Asian trading, semiconductor-related woes were eased by news that Nvidia's profits soared above forecasts, with quarterly net income more than sevenfold from a year earlier to 14.88 billion dollars. Revenue more than tripled for what has become the iconic brand behind the recent artificial intelligence boom.
Taiwan's Taiex hit an all-time high, gaining 0.3% to close at 21,607.43.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 1.3% to finish at 39,103.22. Semiconductor-related companies lead the advance, with tool maker Disco Corp. rising 8% and chip testing equipment maker Advantest Corp. rising 5.4%.
S from Australia&The P/ASX 200 fell 0.5% to 7,811.80. South Korea's Kospi fell almost 0.1% to 2,721.81 as the central bank left its policy rate unchanged, as expected.
Chinese stocks fell as investors questioned whether a new wave of policies to help the troubled real estate sector will be enough to end the industry's crisis. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 1.7% to 18,868.71, while the Shanghai Composite lost 1.3% to 3,116.39.
On Wednesday, the S&The P 500 fell 0.3% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 0.5%. The Nasdaq Composite fell 0.2%.
The latest minutes from the US Federal Reserve's policy meeting showed Fed officials suggesting it would "likely take longer than previously thought" to fully control inflation following disappointingly high readings from the beginning of this year.
And although Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said after that meeting that the Fed is more likely to cut rates than raise them, the minutes said "several participants" were willing to raise rates if inflation worsens. . That cut revived hopes on Wall Street that the Federal Reserve could cut its main interest rate at least once this year.
In recent speeches since that May 1 meeting, some Federal Reserve officials have called those recent reports encouraging. But they have also said they still need to see months more of improving data before they can reduce the federal funds rate, which is at its highest level in more than 20 years.
The Federal Reserve is trying to perform a tightrope walk in which it slows the economy through high interest rates enough to control inflation, but not so much that it causes a bad recession.
Central banks around the world appear eager to cut interest rates, but โthey may not go very farโ given the performance of economies and how high inflation remains, according to Athanasios Vamvakidis, a strategist at Bank of America. He said in a BofA Global Research report that he only expects superficial interest rate cuts, which may also come later than financial markets seem to be forecasting.
In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose 3 cents to $77.60 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 7 cents to $81.79 a barrel.
The US dollar fell to 156.77 Japanese yen from 156.80 yen. The euro rose to $1.0842 from $1.0824.
