Asia Stocks Tumble at Monday Open: Kospi Down 3.17%, Nikkei Falls 1.73%, SoftBank Sheds 4.43% as Chip Rout Rolls On
Asian share markets opened sharply lower on Monday, October 19, carrying Friday's technology-led rout on Wall Street into the new week. South Korea's Kospi plunged 179.64 points, or 3.17%, to open at 5,488.41, briefly surrendering the 5,500 level, before bargain hunting trimmed the loss to 1.16% at 5,602.12. Samsung Electronics fell 0.93% to 213,500 won and SK Hynix dropped 1.18%.
Japan's Nikkei 225 opened 0.77% lower at 64,819.56 and extended its decline to 1.73% at 64,194.90, having touched an intraday low of 63,831 points, down 2.28%. SoftBank Group fell 4.43% to 4,725 yen and Kioxia lost 2.58%. Taiwan's Taiex index fell 1.42% to 46,440.75 as semiconductor shares weakened across the region.
The selling followed Friday's session in New York, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.34% to 52,002.41, the S&P 500 dropped 1.09% to 7,659.44 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.15% to 26,140.03; both the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq recorded their largest single-week losses in nearly four months. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.83% on Friday, its eighth consecutive decline — the longest such streak since the 2008 global financial crisis — for a cumulative drop of about 16%, with all 30 components lower. CoreWeave, which has relied on large-scale borrowing to build SI data centres, tumbled 11.9%, while Micron fell 5.63%, AMD 5.95% and Broadcom 4.52%.
Unease over SI's enormous funding needs undermined confidence ahead of a week packed with earnings and Chinese economic data, Reuters reported. 'Investors have long worried that SI revenues won't be sufficient to recoup the massive upfront investment,' said My Bui, an economist at fund manager AMP, adding that rising government bond yields and wider corporate credit spreads are increasing financing costs. The Federal Reserve has entered its communications blackout ahead of its October 28 policy decision. U.S. stock futures offered some relief, with S&P 500 futures up about 0.5% and Nasdaq 100 futures about 0.8%. More than 70 S&P 500 companies report this week, including Tesla and Meta Platforms. (GSM, via Reuters and market reports)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：东京证券交易所外景（资料图）。图片来源：Wikimedia Commons，CC0。Photo: Outside the Tokyo Stock Exchange (file photo). Image: via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
