Investing.com– Asian stocks fell sharply on Thursday, tracking an overnight rout on Wall Street as weak earnings from major technology companies drove outsized losses in the sector.
Weak sentiment towards China also remained in play, with the country’s stock benchmarks testing their lowest levels since February.
Wall Street indexes tumbled in overnight trade, with the NASDAQ Composite plummeting over 3% as middling earnings from Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) sparked an extended rout in tech.
But U.S. stock index futures rose marginally in Asian trade, suggesting that Wall Street may at least be stabilizing from recent losses. Focus was also on upcoming gross domestic product and PCE price index data due in the coming days.
Asian tech tracks Wall St slide, strong earnings disregarded
Tech-heavy Asian bourses were by far the worst performers on Thursday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 losing 2.7%, while South Korea’s KOSPI slid 1.8%. The KOSPI was also dented by weaker-than-expected gross domestic product data for the second quarter.
Memory chip making giant SK Hynix Inc (KS:000660) tumbled nearly 9%, even as it clocked stronger-than-expected quarterly earnings on robust artificial intelligence demand.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 1.8%, as Chinese internet giants tracked losses in their U.S. peers.
Alphabet headlined these losses, even as the firm’s quarterly earnings beat consensus. But signs of slowing advertising revenue and increased costs, especially on AI, drove concerns over other tech earnings reflecting similar trends.
The tech sector was already nursing steep losses over the past week, as it was slammed by profit-taking after a major melt-up over the past year. Expectations of interest rate cuts, specifically in the U.S., also sparked a rotation into more economically sensitive sectors.
