ASIA MARKET CLOSE | Nikkei, KOSPI Fall About 6% on AI Rout; TAIEX Drops Below 40,000

According to Yonhap, HKET and UDN Money, Japan's Nikkei 225 closed at 57,434.77, down 3,643.13 points or 5.96%, for a fifth straight losing session. The index fell below 57,000 at one point, hitting a low of 56,745, its weakest in nearly six months. The broader TOPIX lost 5.90% to 3,707.99. AI-related shares led the decline, with SoftBank Group down 10.83%, Tokyo Electron down 5.60% and Advantest down 4.99%. South Korea's KOSPI closed at 5,059.69, down 6.02%, on fears over AI data center investment after the U.S. midterm elections. The index sank as much as 8.78% to 4,911.28 shortly after the open, triggering a circuit breaker and a sell-side sidecar, and fell below 5,000 intraday for the first time since Feb. 6. Samsung Electronics closed down 6.35% at 188,700 won, while SK hynix fell 10.44% to 1.132 million won. Foreign investors were net sellers of 2.77 trillion won. Kiwoom Securities analyst Han Ji-young said market volatility was likely to persist after the sharp drop. The government said it will temporarily ease requirements on leveraged investments from next Monday for three months. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index opened 392 points lower and closed at 24,481.86, down 315.12 points or 1.27%, on turnover of HK$247.43 billion. The Hang Seng TECH Index fell 1.83% to 4,078.23. Alibaba fell about 4%, Zijin Mining dropped more than 4% and WuXi AppTec lost more than 5%, while CSOP SK Hynix Daily Max (2x) Leveraged Product (07709) slid 19%. Li Ning rose about 5% and Hua Hong Semiconductor gained more than 4%. Taiwan's TAIEX closed at 39,701.64, down 1,873.08 points or 4.51%, after falling as much as 3,737.67 points during the session. Turnover was NT$1.2461 trillion. TSMC closed down 4.69% at NT$2,135, MediaTek fell 2.02% to NT$3,390 and Hon Hai lost 4.47%. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite closed down 1.10% at 3,649.18, the Shenzhen Component fell 2.57% to 11,175.78 and the ChiNext lost 3.96% to 2,465.23. Combined Shanghai and Shenzhen turnover was 1.66 trillion yuan.