BANGKOK (AP) — Shares retreated Friday in Asia, with benchmarks in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea falling more than 2% after Wall Street indexes fell sharply on doubts over the frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.
President Donald Trump ’s decision to push ahead with 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada and to double tariffs on Chinese products to 20% also left investors reeling.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 3.4% to 36,939.89, pulled lower by plunging prices for shares in technology companies. Computer chip test equipment maker Advantest sank 9.4%, Disco Corp., another equipment maker, lost 11.1% and Tokyo Electron shed 5.3%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 2.3% to 23,175.49, while the Shanghai Composite index lost 0.9% to 3,358.28.
South Korea’s Kospi gave up 3.2% to 2,538.07.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.1% to 8,174.10.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 sank 1.6% to 5,861.57 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.4% to 43,239.50. The Nasdaq composite tumbled 2.8% to 18,544.42.
The S&P 500 has fallen five out of the past six trading sessions after setting an all-time high last week. Concerns about the U.S. economic outlook have been behind much of the drop, including worries over how tariffs could worsen inflation and mass layoffs of government workers could increase unemployment.
Superstar stock Nvidia, one of Wall Street’s most influential companies that’s been leading the market for years, lost 8.5% after initially rising at the open of trading following a better-than-expected profit report.
Better-than-expected earnings reports have become routine for Nvidia, whose chips are powering the surge into artificial-intelligence technology, but this was the company’s first since China’s DeepSeek shook the entire AI industry by saying it has a large language model that can compete with the world’s best without using the most expensive chips.
A 1.7% rise for Berkshire Hathaway, the company run by famed investor Warren Buffett, was one of the strongest upward forces on the index. The owner of Geico, BNSF railroad and other businesses has built a hoard of unused cash recently. That could indicate Buffett, who’s famous for buying stocks when prices are low, may not see much worth purchasing in a market that critics say looks too expensive.
Treasury yields swung following Trump’s latest announcement on tariffs. He said “the proposed TARIFFS scheduled to go into effect on MARCH FOURTH will, indeed, go into effect, as scheduled” for imports from Canada and Mexico. He also said he would add an another 10% tariff to current 10% tariffs on Chinese products on that date.
