Asian markets mostly decline, following Wall Street's weakness

Asian-Pacific stock exchanges moved variously during Friday trading, following weakness in Wall Street shares overnight after giant chip firm Nvidia plummeted despite posting quarterly performance that exceeded market expectations.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.6%, whilst Topix moved relatively flat. The previous day, Nikkei had briefly broken through the 59,000 level for the first time before paring gains.

In South Korea, Kospi weakened 1.1%, whilst the small-cap index Kosdaq fell 0.35%.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index remained relatively stable. Hang Seng futures last traded at 26,391, slightly above the previous closing position of 26,381.02.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 index moved flat at the opening of trading.

Pressure was particularly evident in Asian technology stocks. SK Hynix, a major supplier of high-bandwidth memory for Nvidia, fell more than 2%. Samsung Electronics, a long-standing Nvidia partner, weakened 0.69%. SoftBank Group, a major investor in the artificial intelligence sector, also declined more than 3%.

Negative sentiment originated from Wall Street. The S&P 500 index fell 0.54% to 6,908.86, whilst the Nasdaq Composite weakened 1.18% to 22,878.38. The Dow Jones Industrial Average actually rose marginally by 0.03% to 49,499.20.

Nvidia shares plummeted more than 5% despite the company reporting fourth-quarter profit and revenue that exceeded market expectations. The decline marked the steepest drop since April. Other chip stocks including Broadcom, Lam Research, Western Digital, and Applied Materials also corrected downwards.

Market participants are watching whether this weakness in global technology shares will continue and dampen sentiment in the Asian region over the coming sessions.