ASIA MARKET CLOSE | KOSPI Falls 3.59% on AI Spending Woes, TAIEX Sheds 1,612 Points; Hang Seng Edges Up, Japan Closed

According to Yonhap, HKET and UDN Money, Japanese markets were closed on Tuesday for the Culture Day holiday, with no trading in the Nikkei 225 or the TOPIX. Trading resumes on Wednesday. Seoul's KOSPI opened 2.46% lower and extended losses to close down 210.29 points, or 3.59%, at 5,648.79, as heavy selling in technology shares deepened amid mounting concerns over massive artificial intelligence (AI) spending. Foreigners and institutions sold a net 1.5 trillion won and 511.7 billion won, respectively, while individuals bought a net 1.7 trillion won. Mirae Asset Securities analyst Kim Seok-hwan said worries about the profitability of AI investments persist, adding that a steep drop in U.S. chip stocks on the first trading day of November weighed heavily on the Korean market. Samsung Electronics fell 4.15% to 219,500 won, and SK hynix declined 5.03% to 1,398,000 won. Oil refiners fell as crude prices dropped, with SK Innovation down 9.36% and S-Oil down 11.77%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index opened 76 points higher and gained in choppy trade to close up 132.65 points, or 0.57%, at 23,525.97 on turnover of HK$236.4 billion. The Hang Seng Tech Index rose 0.7% to 3,867. JD.com gained 5.61%, Galaxy Entertainment rose 4.27%, Sands China added 3.36% and Tencent advanced 1.27%, while Lenovo fell 6.11% and WuXi Biologics declined 3.45%. Taiwan's TAIEX closed at 43,307.54, down 1,612.60 points, or 3.59%, after falling as much as 1,728.56 points to an intraday low of 43,191.58. Turnover was NT$928.06 billion. TSMC fell NT$35, or 1.5%, to NT$2,295, MediaTek dropped 7.43%, ASE Technology Holding declined 8.61%, Delta Electronics fell 6.27% and Hon Hai slipped 2.19%. Foreign and mainland Chinese investors sold a net NT$107.31 billion, and the three major institutional investor groups sold a combined net NT$146.46 billion. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.82% to 3,608.10, the Shenzhen Component Index declined 1.21% to 10,876.99 and the ChiNext Index dropped 2.73% to 2,391.65. Combined turnover on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges was 1.7 trillion yuan.