- Asian markets plunged Friday, following Wall Street's steep tech and AI stock sell-off
- Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped 6%, entering bear market with a 20% fall from its June peak
- South Korea's Kospi fell nearly 9%, triggering circuit breakers and a 20-minute halt
Asian markets crashed in the final trading session of the week i.e. Friday, tracking heavy losses on Wall Street as a sharp sell-off in artificial intelligence (AI) and technology stocks rattled investor sentiment.
Japan's Nikkei 225 crashed 6%, while the broader Topix plunged 5.2%. South Korea's Kospi tumbled nearly 9%, triggering circuit breakers and a 20-minute trading halt. Meanwhile, Australia's ASX 200 fell 0.7%, while New Zealand's NZX 50 slipped nearly 0.5%.
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The sell-off pushed Japan's Nikkei 225 into bear market territory, with the index falling more than 20% from its June peak. South Korea's Kospi also slid deeper into bear market territory.
Japan's Nikkei Enters Bear Market; Kospi Crash Triggers Circuit Breakers
Japan's Nikkei 225 fell more than 20% from its June peak, entering bear market territory as technology and semiconductor stocks led the sell-off.
Chip-related stocks came under intense selling pressure. Advantest crashed 12%, while SoftBank Group plunged 11%. Semiconductor equipment maker Tokyo Electron declined nearly 9%, and Kioxia Holdings shed 11%.
South Korea's Kospi also plunged nearly 8% in early trade, triggering circuit breakers that halted trading for 20 minutes. The index subsequently extended its losses to nearly 9%.
Wall Street Crash: Nasdaq Falls 5.5%, S&P 500 Sheds 4.4%
The sell-off across Asian markets followed a brutal session on Wall Street, where all three major US indices recorded their steepest single-day declines since April 2025.
The Nasdaq Composite crashed 5.5% on Thursday, closing more than 10% below its recent high and entering correction territory. The S&P 500 plunged 4.4%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 1,800 points, or 3.4%.
The rout was led by technology and AI-linked stocks, with concerns over the sustainability of heavy investments in AI infrastructure weighing on investor sentiment. All 11 sectors of the S&P 500 ended in the red.
Micron Technology and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) crashed 17% each, while cloud computing firm CoreWeave declined 10%. Among the so-called Magnificent Seven stocks, Nvidia plunged 9%, turning negative for 2026.
The sell-off wiped out more than $1 trillion in combined market capitalisation from the Magnificent Seven stocks.
Adding to concerns, investors weighed the possibility that the Democrats' sweeping midterm election victories could lead to a slowdown in data centre construction, raising questions about the outlook for AI infrastructure spending.
For the week, the Nasdaq was down 4.4%, while the S&P 500 had lost nearly 3%. The Dow was relatively resilient, slipping 0.5% over the same period.
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