Asian shares retreated on Friday, tracking Wall Street's tumble to one of its worst days since April as Nvidia and other AI superstar stocks kept dropping on worries their prices have shot too high.
South Korea's Kospi led the regional decline, falling 3.2% to 4,038.61 amid the global tech sell-off. Samsung Electronics shed 4.1% and SK Hynix was down 6.4%. Japan's Nikkei 225 fell nearly 1.7% to 50,438.99, reversing the previous day's gains, with SoftBank Group plunging 5.7%.
In Chinese markets, Hong Kong's Hang Seng index shed 1.3% to 26,732.99, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped nearly 0.2% to 4,022.89. Data on Friday showed China's factory output grew at a 14-month low of 4.9% year-on-year in October, down from 6.5% in September and below expectations. Investment in fixed assets also fell 1.7% year-on-year in the January to October period.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.4% to 8,628.30 as hopes the Reserve Bank of Australia will cut rates faded after a strong jobs report. On Thursday, the US stock market tumbled, with the S&P 500 sinking 1.7% to 6,737.49 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 1.7% to 47,457.22.
Nvidia was the heaviest weight on the market after falling 3.6%, while other AI-related stocks also struggled, including drops of 7.4% for Super Micro Computer, 6.5% for Palantir Technologies and 4.3% for Broadcom. Questions have been rising about how much higher AI darlings can go following their already spectacular gains, drawing comparisons to the 2000 dot-com bubble.
In the meantime, traders worried the Federal Reserve may not deliver another cut to interest rates in December, as many had been expecting. Expectations have come down sharply in recent days, with traders now seeing roughly a coin flip's chance of a cut, down from nearly 70% a week ago. In other dealings, US benchmark crude oil added 90 cents to $59.59 per barrel, while Brent crude rose 87 cents to $63.88 per barrel.
