Asian stock markets crash: South Korea's KOSPI crashed nearly 9 percent in early trade on Friday, triggering a circuit breaker, while Japan's Nikkei plunged more than 5 percent as a global selloff in artificial intelligence and semiconductor stocks intensified. The rout followed the US midterm elections, where the Democrats' sweeping victory raised fears of tighter AI regulation and a slowdown in data centre investments, wiping trillions of dollars off Wall Street overnight.
The KOSPI plunged as much as 8.8 percent, falling below the psychologically important 5,000 mark for the first time in nine months. The Korea Exchange halted trading for 20 minutes after the benchmark breached the circuit-breaker threshold. The index subsequently recovered some losses but remained down 4.97 percent at 5,116.17 in the latest trading data.
Japan's Nikkei 225 tumbled 5.27 percent to 57,858.61, heading for its biggest single-day decline since April 2025. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.77 percent to 24,607.21, while the broader MSCI Asia Pacific Index declined around 3 percent.
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South Korean chipmaking giants Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix bore the brunt of the selloff as investors reassessed the outlook for the global AI investment boom. Samsung Electronics plunged 10 percent, while SK Hynix sank 13 percent in early trading. Selling pressure was so intense that both stocks were subjected to temporary trading restrictions at the opening.