ASIA MIDDAY MOVES | Chip Names Lift Tokyo and Taiwan After Nvidia; Seoul Slides as Rally Cools

According to Sina Finance, Yonhap and Focus Taiwan (CNA), Asian equities were mixed at midday Friday as Nvidia's upbeat sales outlook lifted chip-linked shares in Tokyo and Taiwan while Seoul's tech leaders pulled back. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 traded at 66,603.63, up 471.65 or 0.71%, as of 12:32 CST (04:32 UTC), with semiconductor names advancing after Nvidia's results. Advantest rose 2.80% and Sony gained 2.27%, while Tokyo Electron added 0.61%. Seoul's KOSPI bucked the regional tone, falling 83.23 points, or 1.20%, to 6,829.14 as of 12:32 CST (04:32 UTC), pressured by chip heavyweights amid foreign and institutional selling; the index had closed at 6,912.37 on Thursday. Samsung Electronics fell 2.82% and SK Hynix dropped 2.58%. Hong Kong stocks ended the morning higher, with the Hang Seng Index up 0.47% at 25,684.89 at the midday break, the Hang Seng Tech Index up 0.6% and the H-share index up 0.52%. Bilibili, Tencent and Xiaomi each rose more than 2%, while Sunac China gained over 5% among property developers and China Gold International added more than 5% as gold names firmed; Montage Technology fell over 3% among chipmakers. Taiwan's TAIEX traded at 46,397.15, up 421.93 or 0.92%, as of 12:32 CST (04:32 UTC), after rallying nearly 600 points to an intraday high of 46,574.52 that topped its Aug. 14 peak. Yageo touched its 610 limit-up, leading passive-component stocks, while TSMC, MediaTek and Delta Electronics advanced. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite closed the morning up 0.08% at 3,959.64, while the Shenzhen Component slipped 0.14% and the ChiNext Index fell 0.32%; AI, cybersecurity, agriculture and property names led gains as chip-related sectors pared early advances. Half-day turnover reached 1.42 trillion yuan.