KOSPI Leads Losses as Asian Stocks Trade Mixed Amid Growing AI Concerns

• Asian equities show a mixed performance in Monday trading.
• Disappointing results from leading US technology groups heightened concerns about AI’s prospects, putting pressure on the KOSPI and Nikkei.
• At Friday’s October meeting, the BoJ left interest rates unchanged while signalling further increases.

Concerns about investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI) are weighing on Asian equities on Friday, with markets showing a broadly mixed performance. Leading technology companies in South Korea and Japan are suffering substantial losses.

A 5.20% decline to 5,630 in the benchmark KOSPI puts South Korea at the forefront of the day’s stock market losses. At the time of writing, Samsung shares were 5.70% lower, while SK Hynix had fallen 1.60%. Earlier this week, SK Hynix reported record quarterly sales of 104.6 trillion won.

A decline of 2.55% took Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 to 63,020. Following a two-day monetary policy review that concluded on Friday, board members of the Bank of Japan (BoJ) opted to leave the short-term interest rate at 1.25%. Markets had expected the decision.

For the first time since adopting its 2% target in 2013, the BoJ assessed the country’s underlying inflation as “generally consistent” with that target.

Concerns about rising borrowing costs, substantial AI expenditure and some earnings that fell short of expectations weighed on investors in Taiwan, where the Taiex lost 2.42% to 45,255.

China’s main equity index, the SHANGHAI, slipped 0.30% to 3,640, while the Hong Kong Stock Exchange gained 1.70% to 23.345. A 0.60% fall left the Shenzhen Stock Index at 11,075.