ASIA MARKET OPEN | KOSPI Opens 1.82% Lower, Sidecar Triggered as Losses Deepen; Hang Seng Opens up 397 Points

According to Kabutan, Yonhap and HKET, Japan's Nikkei 225 opened 196.10 points higher at 62,384.73 on Thursday, while the TOPIX rose 47.42 points to 3,942.80. The Nikkei later turned lower, with losses exceeding 800 points at one point. As of 01:37 UTC, Tokyo Electron was down 10.15%, Advantest was down 11.72% and Sony was up 6.38%. South Korea's KOSPI fell 103.71 points, or 1.82%, to 5,580.09 at the opening bell, as the Democratic Party's victory in the U.S. midterm elections raised concerns over tighter regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers. As of 10:16 a.m. local time, the KOSPI was down 265.65 points, or 4.67%, at 5,418.15, prompting the Korea Exchange (KRX) to activate a sell-side sidecar that suspended program trading for KOSPI-listed shares for five minutes. As of 01:37 UTC, Samsung Electronics was down 5.96% and SK Hynix was down 8.88%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index opened 397 points higher at 24,316, and the Hang Seng Tech Index rose 1.4% to 3,992. Tencent gained 3% and Alibaba rose more than 2%, while Lenovo fell 5%. PetroChina dropped more than 5% and CNOOC fell more than 2% as oil prices declined. As of 01:37 UTC, Xiaomi was up 4.31% and Meituan was up 3.06%. Taiwan's TAIEX opened 282.78 points, or 0.66%, lower at 42,666.13, and losses widened to more than 1,000 points in early trade, taking the index below 42,000. As of 01:37 UTC, TSMC was up 0.44%, MediaTek was down 3.77% and Hon Hai was down 1.04%. In mainland China, A-shares opened lower across the four major indexes, with the Shanghai Composite down 1.07%, the Shenzhen Component down 1.05%, the ChiNext Index down 2% and the STAR Composite Index down 2.28%.