Stocks limp toward U.S. debt denouement; Japan sparkles
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Reuters UK
Reuters UK
By Tom Westbrook SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Stocks were subdued on Friday, apart from standout gains in Japan, as an artificial intelligence rally took a breather and as time ticked out on high-stakes talks to avoid a U.S. debt default. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan drifted 0.3% higher in trade thinned by a holiday in Hong Kong. The index is down 1.6% on the week. Japan’s Nikkei, by contrast, rose 0.7% and is riding momentum from foreign inflows and basking in the afterglow of revenue and production upgrades for U.S. chipmaker Nvidia that have set Japanese firms with ex…