Asia-Pacific markets traded lower Friday, tracking Wall Street declines, as fears over artificial intelligence disruption drove the S&P 500 to a third straight day of losses.
Certain pockets of the U.S. stock market have been hit this year by the release of AI tools that threaten automating tasks performed by some companies — or at least risk eating into their profit margins.
Shares of several trucking and logistics firms declined on fears that new AI tools could slash major freight inefficiencies, leading to less demand for the industry’s services.
Software stocks like Palantir Technologies and Autodesk also slipped, plagued by disruption worries in recent weeks.
Real estate and financial stocks were also casualties, with commercial real estate brokers extending losses for a second straight day.
Investors in Asia were watching for any spillover effects. Taiwan — among the most prominent market in the AI space — was closed for the Lunar New Year holiday.
Japanese and Indian IT stocks were down in Asia, with names like Trend Micro and NS Solutions dropping about 5.61% and 2.4%, respectively. In India, Tata Consultancy Services fell 1.82%, while Infosys tumbled 1.48%.
Chinese tech stocks also fell, with Alibaba down 2.14% and Baidu more than 3% lower. Tech giant Meituan lost 3.06%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 lost 1.21% and finished at 56,941.97, after briefly touching 58,000 on Thursday. The Topix declined 1.63% to 3,818.85. Both indexes were dragged by energy stocks.
South Korea’s Kospi reversed earlier gains and fell 0.28% to 5,507.01, putting an end to a four-day winning streak, while the small-cap Kosdaq retreated 1.77% and closed at 1,106.08.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.71% in its final hour of trade, weighed down by basic materials stocks, while the mainland CSI 300 lost 1.25% and closed at 4,660.41.
Hong Kong-listed Zhipu AI, that trades as Knowledge Atlas Technology, extended its rally on Friday, up 16%, after Thursday’s near-30% surge, building on investor enthusiasm around its newly launched open-source GLM-5 model.
MiniMax also added over 11%, extending gains from its last session, as momentum around its updated M2.5 model and enhanced AI agent tools continued to drive buying interest.
Beijing Haizhi Technology Group shares soared over 260% after a $97 million IPO.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 1.39% down to 8,917.6, with healthcare stocks the largest losers on the index.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 1.34%, led lower by Cisco Systems, which slid 12% after the firm issued disappointing guidance for the current quarter.
The S&P 500 dropped 1.57%, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.03%.
—CNBC’s Sean Conlon, Pia Singh and Sarah Min contributed to this report.
Source: CNBC