SHENZHEN, CHINA – AUGUST 26: Aerial view of Shenzhen skyline in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on August 26, 2020. (Photo credit: He Shaoping/VCG, Getty Images)
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Asia-Pacific markets fell on Friday, following Wall Street’s decline on persistent concerns about the high valuations of artificial intelligence stocks.
Shares of major AI companies fell in the US on Thursday, weighing on the overall US market. The biggest decline was in Nvidia, microsoft, Palantir Technologies, broadcom and advanced micro device.
Japanese benchmark Nikkei Stock Average The index fell 1.19% to close at 50,276.37. The main drag was on the stock prices of AI-related stocks. Softbank Ending 6.87% lower, semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest fell 5.54%, chip maker Renesas Electronics fell 3.75%, while chip manufacturing equipment maker Tokyo Electron fell 1.35%.
The TOPIX index ended at almost 3298.85.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.81% to 3,953.76 in volatile trading, while the small-cap Kosdaq fell 2.38% to 876.81. South Korean memory chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix fell 1.31% and 2.19%, respectively.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.66% to settle at 8,769.7.
hong kong Hang Seng Index fell 0.92% to end at 26,241.83, while the mainland’s CSI300 fell 0.31% to end at 4,678.79.
Official data on Friday showed China’s exports fell 1.1% in US dollar terms from a year earlier, lower than the 3% increase expected in a Reuters poll and sharply down from September’s 8.3% rise.
Imports were also lower than expected, increasing by 1% in October compared to the same month last year. Economists expected growth of 3.2%, down from 7.4% in September. This comes at a time when domestic demand continues to be weighed down by a prolonged housing recession, rising employment concerns, and a reduction in consumption-focused economic stimulus measures.
India’s Nifty 50 index reversed and rose 0.11%, while the Sensex index was flat.
Shares in Bharti Airtel fell after a unit of Singapore-based telecom company Singtel announced on Friday that it had sold a stake in the company for S$1.5 billion ($1.15 billion).
Singtel shares rose as much as 2.67% on Friday after hitting a new intraday high, while Airtel fell as much as 4.34%.
Singtel said the sale was to “actively optimize its portfolio through asset recycling” and its stake in Airtel would be reduced from 28.3% to 27.5%. CFO Arthur Lang said the transaction brings the total value of assets sold from Singtel to S$5.6 billion, more than half of the company’s medium-term profit target of S$9 billion.
U.S. futures edged higher in early Asian trading hours as tech stocks fell on Thursday.
Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 398.70 points, or 0.84%, to close at 46,912.30. The S&P 500 Index fell 1.12% to close at 6,720.32, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 1.9% to close at 23,053.99.
—CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Sarah Min contributed to this report.
