During Asian trade on Friday, gold fell for a second session and briefly slipped below $4,000 as persistent expectations of a hawkish Fed weighed. Weak tech earnings raised concern that rising AI spending may not deliver commensurate returns, prompting flows into safe-haven US Treasuries and pushing US yields sharply lower. Renewed hopes for a diplomatic end to the Middle East conflict drove the dollar down for a third day but did little to ease gold’s downside bias. Iran’s navy claimed four tan

Hong Kong stocks closed higher. The Hang Seng Index rose 1.46% after opening 52 points up at 23,011, dipping to an intraday low of 22,947 before rallying to a high of 23,400 and briefly surpassing the morning high of 23,367; the market climbed above its 10-day moving average in the afternoon. The Hang Seng TECH Index gained 0.29%. Turnover was HKD214.31 billion. Mainland education, ports & transport, dairy and internet healthcare led sector gains; home appliances, catering and alcoholic beverages also advanced. BCI, heavy machinery and PCB concepts continued to retreat; consumer electronics, semiconductors and recent AI small-caps underperformed. Notable movers: Mengniu Dairy (02319.HK) rose about 9.5%, Sinopec (00386.HK) gained over 6%; Evergrande Property (06666.HK) fell more than 17% on resumption of trading, Lenovo Group (00992.HK) dropped over 7%, Huahong Hongli (01347.HK) fell over 6%.

U.S. President Trump said his support within the Republican Party has reached 99% and that his rallies drew what he described as the largest midterm audiences in history, about five times the previous record.