GLOBAL MARKETS - Asia-Pacific plunged on recession fears in the US
Istanbul, September 4 (Hibya) - 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 percent, leading losses in Asia, while the broad-based Topix was down 2.79 percent.
Semiconductor-related stocks such as Renesas Electronics plunged 8 percent, making it the largest loser on the index. Tokyo Electron lost 7.04 percent, while Advantest tumbled over 7.7 percent. Softbank Group, which owns chip designer Arm, fell over 5.9 percent. Arm designs chips for Nvidia.
South Korea’s Kospi and the small-cap Kosdaq lost 2.17 percent and nearly 3 percent, respectively. Chip giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix—both Nvidia suppliers—lost 2.62 percent and 6.36 percent, respectively.
The Taiwan Weighted Index dropped 3.49 percent, with heavyweights Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company
down 3.56 percent and Hon Hai Precision Industry — known internationally as Foxconn — falling over 3.51 percent. The index lost as much as 5.29 percent in early trade before recovering to current levels.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost almost 1.70 percent, mainly dragged by a weakness in oil prices. The country’s second-quarter GDP grew by 1 percent year-on-year, on par with expectations, and 0.2 percent quarter-on-quarter. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index saw the smallest loss in the region, slipping 1.5 percent, while the mainland Chinese CSI 300 was down 0.47 percent.
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 percent and Hua Hong Semiconductor falling 1.06 percent.
The August Caixin Services Purchasing Managers index showed that China’s service sector expanded at a slower rate than in July, with the PMI falling to 51.6 from 52.1.