Asian stocks were mixed on Wednesday following a sell-off in big technology stocks from Asia to Wall Street.
US stock futures were also trading mixed, as global investors monitored market movements in Japan and South Korea, which have seen big gains in recent months on the global AI boom but both fell sharply on Tuesday.
South Korea's benchmark Kospi index was up 0.5 per cent to 8,241.23, recovering slightly from its 10 per cent decline on Tuesday. Shares of memory chip maker SK Hynix, one of the country's most valuable stocks, fell 3.6 per cent. Samsung Electronics was up 3.7 per cent after Tuesday's 12.3 per cent plunge.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 lost 1.1 per cent to 68,991.77 after falling 3.6 per cent on Tuesday.
Taiwan's Taiex, which is also heavily influenced by tech shares, fell 2.5 per cent.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng edged up 0.1 per cent to 23,364.72. The Shanghai Composite index was down 0.3 per cent to 4,096.14. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was trading 0.1 per cent higher at 8,797.00.
The declines in Asian markets, including Japan's, followed Tuesday's 1.4 per cent drop for Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 2.2 per cent, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.1 per cent lower.
Big tech and semiconductor stocks fell in the US. On Tuesday, Micron Technology sank 13.2 per cent, while Nvidia lost more than 4.1 per cent.
The big falls in tech shares were an “illustration of rising volatility” in these stocks, said James Reilly, senior markets economist at Capital Economics. “This is particularly true in Korea where domestic retail buyers are taking on an increasing role,” he said.
Oil prices fell early Wednesday, as more ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz while US-Iran talks on a permanent end to the Iran war made progress.
“Price movements suggest the market expects a fairly rapid recovery in Persian Gulf oil supplies,” ING commodities strategists Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey said in a commentary.
Still, while vessel crossings in the strait increased in recent days, they remained well below pre-war levels, they noted.
Brent crude, the international standard, fell 0.7 per cent to $76.30 a barrel. It has been trading below $80 in recent days but is still elevated compared to approximately $70 a barrel in late February before the war began. Benchmark US crude was down 0.7 per cent to $72.70 a barrel.
In the US, investors are awaiting a report due Thursday on May's personal consumption expenditures price index, or PCE, the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge.
Some economists predict the Fed may hold key interest rates this year but is unlikely to raise them. Bond yields have remained higher as inflation concerns grew amid global energy shocks.
In other dealings, the US dollar was unchanged at 161.55 Japanese yen. The euro was trading at $1.1364, down from $1.1382.
