Employees work at the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), which is operated by Japan Exchange Group Inc. (JPX), in Tokyo, Japan, on Thursday, January 4, 2024.
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Asia-Pacific markets fell on Wednesday, tracking losses on Wall Street after tech stocks sold off and weak US economic data fueled fears of a recession.
Chipmaker Nvidia lost more than 9% in regular trading, dragging its peers, such as Intel, AMD and Marvell.
The VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH), an index that tracks semiconductor stocks, fell 7.5%, its worst day since March 2020.
Separately, the ISM manufacturing index for August came in at 47.2% for the month, up 0.4 percentage points from July, but below the 47.9% expected from the Dow Jones. The measure measures the percentage of companies reporting expansion, so anything below 50% indicates contraction.
In Asia, investors will be watching for any spillover from the Nvidia sale, especially among Nvidia suppliers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing CompanySK Hynix and Samsung Electronics.
Japan Nikkei 225 fell more than 3.26%, leading to losses in Asia, while the broad-based Topix fell 2.97%
South Korea Kospi lost 2.29% at the open, as did small cap Kosdaq, which lost 2.60%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.91%.
Hong Kong Hang Seng Index futures were at 17,487, lower than HSI’s last close of 17,651.49.
In the US, all three major indexes recorded their worst days since the August 5 global sell-off. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.51% and the S&P 500 fell 2.12%. The Nasdaq Composite suffered the biggest losses, falling 3.26%.
—CNBC’s Fred Imbert and Alex Harring contributed to this report.
