Global Economy

Nikkei and Taiex plunge 3%, leading losses in Asia after Wall Street plummets on weak U.S. data


Employees work at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. (JPX), in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Asia-Pacific markets plunged on Wednesday, led by Japan’s Nikkei 225 after U.S. tech stocks sold off and weak U.S. economic data sparked recession fears.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 3.19%, leading losses in Asia, while the broad based Topix was down 2.79%.

Semiconductor related stocks such as Renesas Electronics plunged 8%, making it the largest loser on the index. Tokyo Electron lost 7.04%, while Advantest tumbled over 7.7%.

Softbank Group, which owns chip designer Arm, fell over 5.9%. Arm designs chips for Nvidia.

South Korea’s Kospi lost 2.17%, as well as the small cap Kosdaq, which saw a nearly 3% loss.

Chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix — both Nvidia suppliers — lost 2.62% and 6.36% respectively.

The Taiwan Weighted Index dropped 3.37%, paring some losses, with heavyweights Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company down 3.56% and Hon Hai Precision Industry — known internationally as Foxconn — falling over 3.51%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost almost 1.70%, mainly dragged by a weakness in oil prices.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index saw the smallest loss in the region, slipping 1.5%, while the mainland Chinese CSI 300 was down 0.47%

Chinese chip stocks also suffered some weakness despite these being unrelated to Nvidia’s supply chain, with state-linked Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation down 1.95% and Hua Hong Semiconductor falling 1.06%.

In the U.S., chipmaker Nvidia lost over 9% in regular trading, dragging other counterparts along with it, such as Intel, AMD and Marvell.

The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), an index that tracks semiconductor stocks, was down 7.5%, its worst day since March 2020.

Separately, the ISM manufacturing index for August came in at 47.2% for the month, up 0.4 percentage points from July, but below the 47.9% expected from Dow Jones. The gauge measures the percentage of companies reporting expansion, so anything below 50% represents contraction.

All three major indexes recorded their worst days since the Aug. 5 global sell-off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.51% and the S&P 500 down 2.12%. The Nasdaq Composite saw the largest loss, tumbling 3.26%.

—CNBC’s Fred Imbert and Alex Harring contributed to this report.



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