SoftBank, Asian chip stocks plunge after Nasdaq rout

Asian technology shares fell sharply Friday, November 6, after a sell-off on Wall Street pushed the Nasdaq Composite into correction. In Tokyo, SoftBank Group dropped 11.6%, chip-testing equipment maker Advantest fell 12.2% and Tokyo Electron slid 7.3%, CNBC Comcast Corporation ↗ 0.40% reported. Japan's Nikkei 225 was down 5.9% in early trade, with chip-related stocks leading the decline, according to The Wall Street Journal News Corp ↘ 13.24%.cnbc.com+1

The losses grew as the morning went on. Business Insider later reported SoftBank down 15%, Advantest down about 16% and memory chipmaker Kioxia down 15%.africa.businessinsider.com

Wall Street's AI rout spreads

The Nasdaq fell 5.5% on Thursday and closed more than 10% below its recent peak, while the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index PHLX Semiconductor Index ↘ 12.13% dropped 12.2%, CNBC reported. The S&P 500 ↘ 4.41% lost 4.4%, its worst day since the April 2025 "Liberation Day" tariff turmoil, Gulf News reported. Nvidia ↘ 9.26% fell more than 9%, and Micron ↘ 17.46% and AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. ↘ 17.26% each lost more than 17%, according to TradingKey.gulfnews.com+2

Investors are worried that Democrats' sweeping win in the U.S. midterm elections could bring tighter limits on data-center development and slow demand for AI chips, CNBC reported. Those fears add to longer-running doubts about whether the huge sums going into AI will pay off, according to The Jakarta Post.cnbc.com+1

Seoul and Taipei hit hard

South Korea's Kospi fell more than 8%, which triggered a 20-minute trading halt, The Jakarta Post reported. SK Hynix ↘ 13.40% dropped more than 8% and Samsung Electronics lost 7%. In Taiwan, TSMC ↘ 10.78% fell 9.6% and Hon Hai Precision Industry fell 9.4%, according to CNBC.cnbc.com+1

A rough stretch for SoftBank

The drop extends a hard run for SoftBank. Its shares have fallen more than 45% in a month, and on Thursday a Chinese regulator reportedly blocked its $5.4 billion deal for ABB's robotics business, Breaking The News reported. Asian chip stocks had already fallen on Thursday, when SoftBank lost 5.3% and Advantest dropped 9.4%, according to the Associated Press via Yahoo.breakingthenews.net+1

Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo, called the slide partly a reassessment of future U.S. infrastructure demand. "The market is repricing future expectations rather than responding to a sudden collapse in current demand," she wrote, as quoted by Business Insider.africa.businessinsider.com