Asia markets mixed as chip stocks rebound after tech selloff

Asian stocks traded mixed on Friday as chipmakers rebounded from a sharp selloff that had hammered South Korea’s market a day earlier. South Korea’s Kospi recovered part of Thursday’s steep loss, rising 2.8% to 7,863.22, and Samsung Electronics gained 7% as investors moved back into technology names.

The turbulence started after a broad U.S. tech rout hit semiconductor shares across Asia on Thursday. Meta Platforms’ plan to develop a business selling access to AI computing power fed worries about overcapacity, and that anxiety spread quickly through the region’s chip-heavy markets. Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix both fell sharply, erasing billions in market value and underscoring how tightly Asia’s biggest benchmarks have become tied to the global AI trade.

India held up better than much of the region on Thursday as lower oil prices and a rebound in information technology stocks softened the blow from the global AI-stock selloff. By Friday, oil prices were rising and U.S. futures were moderately higher before the American open, helping stabilize sentiment across Asia after the overnight swing in New York and the record set by the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The rebound was enough to lift some markets, but not enough to erase the warning shot for investors watching from the United States. South Korea and Japan sit at the center of the semiconductor cycle, so when traders question AI spending or chip demand, the move can hit Asian benchmarks first and then spill into U.S. tech stocks, exchange-traded funds, and retirement accounts before New York opens. The speed of the turnaround from Thursday’s rout to Friday’s partial recovery suggested sentiment was still fragile, with chip demand and AI capex still driving the direction of the trade.