Asian stocks plunge as technology shares face heavy selling
Taiwan and South Korea markets saw significant losses as investors grew cautious regarding the future of artificial intelligence investments.
Asian stock markets experienced a broad-based sell-off on Friday, with Taiwan and South Korea seeing the largest declines, according to the Times of India.
Taiwan's weighted index fell 8%, while South Korea's KOSPI dropped more than 7%. Japan's Nikkei 225 declined over 3,000 points, or 5.95%, and Singapore's Straits Times index fell 2.20% to 5,180.
The downturn was driven by a rout in technology stocks, particularly semiconductor companies. In South Korea, SK Hynix fell more than 8% and Samsung Electronics shed 7%. In Taiwan, contract chipmaker TSMC slumped 9.6%, while Hon Hai Precision Industry and Foxconn Technology dropped 9.4% and 9.1% respectively.
Japanese technology stocks also declined, with chip-testing equipment maker Advantest plunging 12.2% and SoftBank Group tumbling 11.6%. In the US, the Nasdaq Composite fell 5.52% to close at 24,315.00, while the S&P 500 declined 4.36% to settle at 7,353.73.
The selling was triggered by concerns that the Democratic Party's victory in both chambers of the US Congress and key gubernatorial races could slow the expansion of data centres. This has led to investor anxiety regarding companies involved in AI infrastructure, such as semiconductor manufacturers and data centre operators.
