Asia-Pacific markets fell on Friday, following Wall Street’s declines on continued concerns over high valuations of artificial intelligence stocks.
Shares of major artificial intelligence firms fell on Thursday in the US, weighing on the broader US market. The biggest declines were recorded at Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir Technologies, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell by 2.03%. Shares of AI-related stocks led the decline: SoftBank fell more than 8%, semiconductor test equipment maker Advantest lost more than 7%, chip maker Renesas Electronics fell 4%, and Tokyo Electron, a maker of chip manufacturing equipment, fell 2.17%.
The Topix index retreated by 1.18%.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 3.1% in choppy trading, while small firm Kosdaq lost 3.45%. The country’s memory chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix lost 2.62% and 3.71%, respectively.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell by 0.72%, SEEbiz reports.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.14%, while the mainland’s CSI 300 lost 0.3%.
China’s October exports fell 1.1% in US dollar terms from a year earlier, official data showed on Friday, less than a 3% rise expected in a Reuters poll and a sharp decline from an 8.3% rise in September.
Imports were also less than expected, rising 1% in October from a year earlier. Economists expected growth of 3.2%, compared to 7.4% in September. This comes at a time when weak domestic demand continues to weigh on a prolonged downturn in the housing market, growing job insecurity and a reduction in consumer spending stimulus measures.
India’s Nifty 50 lost 0.63%, while the Sensex index was lower by 0.49%.
Shares in Bharti Airtel fell after the Singapore-based unit of telco Singtel said on Friday it had sold a stake in the Indian firm for S$1.5 billion (US$1.15 billion).
Singtel shares rose as much as 5.11% on Friday, hitting a single-day high, while Airtel lost as much as 4.34%.
