Asian Tech Stocks Broadly Fall as Unease Over AI Spending Builds — Update

By Sherry Qin and Kimberley Kao

Asian tech stocks mostly fell Monday as mounting artificial-intelligence funding concerns outweighed relief in the energy markets.

Sentiment across the region was weighed down by Wall Street's losses on Friday, which were hammered by AI infrastructure stocks. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index tumbled 3.8% on Friday while the tech-heavy Nasdaq recorded its weakest week since June.

While data-center provider Coreweave's share and bond selloff brought credit risks into focus, the selloff has spread across the AI value chain, affecting even companies with limited financing needs, Tiger Brokers' James Ooi said in a note, adding that investors are rotating toward defensive sectors.

"This suggests sentiment may be overtaking fundamentals," Ooi said.

Fresh earnings reports from key AI supply-chain players ASML and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. last week showed that AI demand remains robust, but analysts worry that debt-laden AI financing and the timeline for actual economic returns have reached a critical tipping point.

"We've been arguing for a while that volatility in tech stocks would pick up as the AI bubble continued to inflate", said Thomas Mathews, head of markets for Asia Pacific at Capital Economics.

Asian chipmakers that declined included Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., recently down 0.8%, South Korea's SK Hynix down 1.3%, and Japan's Advantest Corp., which fell 0.7%.

Regional indexes were mixed with Japan's Nikkei Stock Average down 0.7%, Taiwan's Taiex down 1.0% and the ChiNext Price Index falling 1.1%.

Meanwhile South Korea's Kospi was up 0.6%, while China's Shanghai Composite Index was flat as investors digested the better-than-expected economic growth data.

The Hong Kong market was closed for a holiday.

Oil prices retreated after surging to a five-month high Friday but remained above $100 a barrel.

However, the retreat could be brief as plans by the G-7 nations to accelerate release of oil and diesel stockpiles have been dismissed as too late and already priced in by the market, ANZ Research analysts said in a note.

President Trump on Friday night halted implementation of most of the sanctions slated for Russia, as part of a bid to end the war in Ukraine and keep energy prices under control ahead of the midterm elections.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed a trilateral meeting with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping next month to talk about Ukraine in an attempt to negotiate an end to the conflict, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Front-month WTI crude oil futures were 1.2% lower at $100.15 a barrel, while front-month Brent crude oil futures were down 1.9% at $107.80 a barrel.

Write to Sherry Qin at sherry.qin@wsj.com and Kimberley Kao at kimberley.kao@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 19, 2026 02:30 ET (06:30 GMT)