Markets mixed as bitcoin hits new high
A pedestrian walks past a stock quotation board showing Nikkei share average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan on Apr 4, 2025. (File photo: Reuters/Kim Kyung-Hoon)
TOKYO: Markets were mixed Thursday (Aug 14), with Japan's Nikkei down as bitcoin hit a new high and investors braced for talks between the US and Russian presidents in Alaska.
Bitcoin hit a new peak during early Asian trading, with the cryptocurrency briefly exceeding US$124,500 before retreating, driven by favourable US legislation and a rise in US equities.
"The crypto market is enjoying a period of highly favourable fundamentals," said Samer Hasn, senior market analyst at XS.com.
Hopes of a US interest rate cut after soft inflation data pushed Tokyo's Nikkei to its second record close in as many days on Wednesday, but on Thursday the index closed down 1.45 per cent.
Hong Kong and Taipei also fell while Seoul edged up. London, Frankfurt and Paris were all higher in early trade.
With US President Donald Trump calling on the US Federal Reserve to cut rates, his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pressured the Bank of Japan governor to lift borrowing costs.
Despite inflation being above its target, the BoJ has been holding off raising borrowing costs, seeing price rises as caused by temporary factors and not by strong demand or wage growth.
"The Japanese have an inflation problem ... They are behind the curve so they are going to be hiking," Bessent told Bloomberg TV.
Investors were also eyeing talks on Friday between Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, on ending the more than three-year war in Ukraine.
