Asia Drops as Japan Takes Dive

Equities in the Asian markets were mostly down Thursday, perhaps in fear of the next moves in the Iran War.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index plummeted 1,915.97 points, or 2.8%, to 66.835.54.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index gained 327.50 points, or 1.3%, to 25,008.60.

The gains in Hang Seng were led by real estate and consumer cyclicals sectors, up 2.17% and 2.07%, respectively. Shares of Alibaba and Baidu rose 3.26% and 2.51% in Hong Kong, respectively, on the back of their partnership with Apple for deploying AI tools.

Shares of SK Hynix tumbled over 11% in Seoul, reversing the previous session’s 8% rally. The stock had logged its steepest one-day decline on Monday, as investors locked in profits amid growing worries over AI spending.

Domestic rival Samsung Electronics dropped more than 7%. Seoul Semiconductor fell more than 5%, LG Innotek lost about 1%, and Samsung
SDI was down over 2%.

The weakness spread across the region. In Japan, AI-linked equipment makers Advantest fell more than 6%, SoftBank Group slid nearly 7%, Tokyo Electron lost over 5%, while Renesas Electronics declined 4%.

In other markets;

In Shanghai, the CSI index slumped 88.35 points, or 1.8%, to 4,698.44.

In Korea, the Kospi index tumbled 463.81 points, or 6.4%, to 6,820.66

In Singapore, the Straits Times 50 index lost 20.34 points, or 0.4%, to 5,539.38

In Taiwan, the Taiex index dropped 463.81 points, or 6.4%, to 45,624.98.

In New Zealand, the NZX 50 docked 20.29 points, or 0.2%, to 13,614.78.

In Australia, the ASX settled 0.4 points to 8,840.67.