Despite Moderate Gains On Wall St, Asian Shares Slide

Bangkok: Asian shares were mostly lower on Thursday after US stock indexes drifted to a mixed finish, with the S&P 500 closing just an iota higher.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 edged 0.2% higher to 38,198.96. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng sank 0.8% to 23,618.74, while the Shanghai Composite index shed 0.5% to 3,364.05. Tech shares that had gained earlier in the week were among the heavier sellers. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 500 added 0.3% to 8,268.60, while the Kospi in South Korea dropped 0.9% to 2,618.77. Elsewhere in Asia, Taiwan’s dropped 0.8% and the SET in Thailand edged less than 0.1% higher. On Wednesday, U.S. stock indexes drifted to a mixed finish. The S&P 500 inched up by 0.8% to 5,956.06, breaking a four-day losing streak that had knocked the index off its all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.4% to 43,433.12, and the Nasdaq composite climbed 0.3% to 19,075.26. The stock market has generally been struggling following some weaker-than-expected reports on the economy, including a couple that showed U.S. households growing pessimistic about inflation and higher tariffs pushed by President Donald Trump. Some of the harshest drops hit Big Tech and other high-growth stocks, whose incredible momentum had earlier seemed unstoppable.

Super Micro Computer, one of the stocks that has soared in the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology, lost nearly a quarter of its value over four days, for example. But it jumped 12.2% Wednesday after filing its annual report for its fiscal year that ended in June.

Much of the market’s attention remained on Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the poster child of the AI rush.