Asian equities staggered into the weekend on Friday following a mixed week that saw an agreement on a Middle East ceasefire and huge new AI investments play off against the US shutdown and concerns about a tech bubble.

While some markets hit record highs along with gold and bitcoin, talk is growing that valuations among some companies may have run too high, sparking talk of a pullback.

Buying sentiment got another boost this week from news that ChatGPT-maker OpenAI had signed multi-billion-dollar chip deals with South Korean titans Samsung and SK hynix as well as US firm AMD.

The spending added to the hundreds of billions already pumped into the sector as firms look to get ahead on the sphere of artificial intelligence.

That in turn has seen investors flood into the tech sector, sending stock prices rocketing -- with US chip leader Nvidia topping a $4 trillion market capitalisation.

However, there are rumblings that the rally could run out of steam, causing jitters on trading floors.

"Some areas of the market appear overheated," said Keith Lerner at Truist Advisory Services.

Such worries have been part of the reason behind the rally in gold to a record above $4,000 on Wednesday.

Alexandra Symeonidi, corporate credit........

© International Business Times