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Most Asian stock markets dropped on Thursday, dragged down by a wave of selling in semiconductor shares, as European bourses made a subdued start and Wall Street looked set to open in the red before the release of key US employment figures.
The pullback centred on the technology sector, where investors retreated from the chip stocks that have powered much of this year’s rally, amid growing unease that the vast sums Big Tech is spending on AI could leave the market awash with supply.
South Korea’s Kospi bore the worst of it, tumbling around 5% as its heavyweight chipmakers slid. Memory specialist SK Hynix lost close to 8% and Samsung Electronics fell more than 6%.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 shed about 1.5%, with chip-equipment maker Tokyo Electron down around 5.6%, while Taiwan’s Taiex slipped 1.1% as TSMC, the world’s largest contract chipmaker, gave up 1.8%.
The falls followed a rough session for chip stocks on Wall Street this Wednesday, where Micron Technology dropped more than 10% and Intel sank around 9%.
The moves stand in sharp contrast to a stellar year for Asian tech, with the Kospi and the Nikkei still up roughly 85% and 34% respectively in 2026.
On the other hand, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose about 0.8%, lifted by an 8.7% jump in electric-vehicle maker BYD after it reported a second straight monthly rise in sales, while India’s Sensex added 0.5%.
In Europe, markets opened flat as both the Euro Stoxx 50 and the broader pan-European Stoxx 600 traded within a 1% range at the start of Thursday’s session.
The UK’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX 30, France’s CAC 40 and Spain’s IBEX 35, all traded between 0.1% and 0.3% higher.
Italy’s FTSE MIB led the pack and rose about 0.4%.
Oil extends its slide and US jobs in focus
Crude prices fell again, trading below where they sat before the Iran war began in late February, as hopes grew that supplies through the Strait of Hormuz will steadily recover.
Brent crude, the international standard, eased around 1% to about $70.89 a barrel while WTI, the US benchmark, dropped 3% to roughly $69.
Attention now turns to the US, where stock futures edged lower ahead of the June employment report, brought forward a day because of Friday’s Independence Day.
Economists polled by Dow Jones expect around 115,000 jobs were added last month.
The figure carries extra weight under the new Federal Reserve chair, Kevin Warsh, with investors wary that a strong reading could harden the case for keeping interest rates higher for longer.
According to economists at Capital Economics, demand for AI may keep growing but at a slower pace than many expect, a caution that helped sour sentiment towards the sector.
Additional sources • AP