Asia Stocks Rebound After Tech Selloff

By Megan Cheah

Asian stocks rebounded, mirroring gains in the U.S., as equities recouped some losses following a technology selloff driven by worries around the artificial-intelligence trade.

Concerns about tech companies overspending on AI led investors to rotate out of the AI trade and seek value elsewhere, said Commonwealth Bank of Australia's Ryan Felsman.

"U.S. stocks bounced after a drop fueled by concerns about the sustainability of the AI trade, with attractive valuations and solid corporate earnings luring bargain hunters," he said.

Nonetheless, the selloff in technology stocks eased after Nvidia Chief Executive Jensen Huang pushed back on financial concerns around CoreWeave, causing its stock to rebound, the senior economist said.

The Nvidia-backed compute provider has been a weather vane for one of the riskiest corners of the AI trade, and its bonds and shares had suffered a steep drop after AI profitability fears and hot inflation data collided.

Despite the reversal, Tiger Brokers' James Ooi said investors are likely to remain watchful of CoreWeave's financing costs, as part of its debt is linked to U.S. floating interest rates and could be affected by the Federal Reserve's recent rate hike.

Wall Street's gains helped to prop up Asian equities on Friday. South Korea's chip-heavy Kospi rose 3.1%, with heavyweights Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix each more than 2% higher. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average gained 1.6% and Taiwan's Taiex added 1.0%.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index increased 1.05% and its tech gauge climbed 1.6%, while China's Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.7%.

Oil futures declined, likely dragged by the International Energy Agency's announcement to release crude oil and diesel fuel. The IEA said Thursday that the volume of emergency oil stocks being released by member countries would exceed the 400 million barrels agreed upon in March.

Members have pledged to expedite the remaining releases of around 100 million barrels, including around 20 million barrels of diesel, the IEA said.

ING strategists said the U.S. "probably won't be happy with the scale of the release, particularly regarding diesel," as initial projections had suggested that around 50 million barrels of diesel could be released.

"The risk is that if the U.S. believes these volumes are not enough, the administration may mull restrictions on U.S. diesel exports once again," the strategists said.

Front-month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures declined 0.6% to $97.34 a barrel, while front-month Brent fell 0.5% to $105.44 a barrel, ICE data showed.

Meanwhile, higher-than-expected U.S. wholesale inflation likely pressured gold, with spot prices down 0.4% to $4,154.01 a troy ounce.

Stronger inflation data could fuel expectations for a Fed rate increase, and a higher interest-rate environment typically weighs on nonyielding assets such as gold.

--Ronnie Harui contributed to this article.

Write to Megan Cheah at megan.cheah@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 15, 2026 22:41 ET (02:41 GMT)