ASIA MIDDAY MOVES | Nikkei Falls Over 4%, Taiwan Stocks Briefly Lose 42,000 as U.S. Midterm Counts Weigh

According to Nikkei Asia, RTHK and NOWNEWS, Asian stocks came under pressure on Wednesday morning as U.S. midterm vote counting suggested the Democratic Party was poised to take control of the House of Representatives while also leading in the Senate. Japan's Nikkei 225 stood at 60,323.49 as of 04:32 UTC, down 2,758.37 points, or 4.37%, after touching a more-than-three-month low earlier in the morning. Advantest fell 9.09% and Tokyo Electron dropped 7.33%. South Korea's KOSPI fell in tandem, standing at 5,468.05 as of 04:32 UTC, down 180.74 points, or 3.20%. SK Hynix dropped 5.72% and Samsung Electronics declined 3.87%. Hong Kong stocks traded in a narrow range. The Hang Seng Index opened lower and fell as much as 140 points to a low of 23,385 before recovering toward noon, ending the morning session at 23,529, up 3 points, with main-board turnover above HK$87.7 billion. The Hang Seng Tech Index was at 3,828, down 1%, with JD.com and Alibaba each down nearly 2%. Automakers and AI large-model stocks weakened, as XPeng, NIO, Li Auto, MiniMax and Zhipu fell between more than 3% and about 4%. Chip and pharmaceutical stocks rose, with BeiGene, WuXi Biologics and WuXi AppTec up nearly 5% or more and SMIC up more than 2%. Taiwan's TAIEX opened higher at 43,449.45, up 141.91 points, before turning lower; it stood at 41,950.86 at 03:40 UTC, down 1,356.68 points, or 3.13%, breaking below 42,000. As of 04:32 UTC, the index was at 42,386.33, down 921.21 points, or 2.13%. TSMC fell 1.96% and MediaTek declined 3.40%. In mainland China, as of 04:32 UTC, the Shanghai Composite ended the morning session at 3,604.37, down 0.10%, while the Shenzhen Component rose 0.14% to 10,891.91 and the CSI 300 edged up 0.04% to 4,010.35.