ASIA MIDDAY MOVES | KOSPI Falls 4.4% as Chip Stocks Slide; Hang Seng Gains 739 Points on Tech Rally

According to HKET, The Korea Herald and UDN Money, Japan's Nikkei 225 reversed early gains and stood at 61,364.59 as of 04:33 UTC, down 824.04 points, or 1.33%, after rising as much as 465 points in early trade. Advantest fell 11.69% and Tokyo Electron declined 8.93%, while Sony gained 6.43%. Seoul's KOSPI was at 5,436.45 as of 04:31 UTC, down 247.35 points, or 4.35%. The Korea Exchange activated a sell-side sidecar at 10:16 a.m. local time, suspending program trading for five minutes after the index fell 4.67% to 5,418.15, as the Democratic Party's U.S. midterm victory raised concerns over tighter regulation of artificial intelligence data centers. Samsung Electronics fell 6.19% and SK Hynix dropped 8.81%. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose 739 points to 24,659 at the half-day close, after opening 397 points higher at 24,316 and climbing as high as 24,749. The Hang Seng Tech Index gained 4.8% to 4,124. Meituan rose 8%, Alibaba and Xiaomi each added 7%, Tencent gained more than 5% and HSBC rose 4%, while Lenovo fell more than 7% and PetroChina declined 3% as oil prices slid. Taiwan's TAIEX was at 41,815.67 as of 04:32 UTC, down 1,133.24 points, or 2.64%, after opening 282.78 points lower at 42,666.13 and falling below the 42,000 mark. MediaTek fell 5.25% and TSMC eased 0.44%. The New Taiwan dollar weakened more than 0.14 against the U.S. dollar, nearing the 33 level. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.10% to 3,689.79 at the midday break, the Shenzhen Component Index gained 1.44% to 11,498.77 and the CSI 300 added 0.36% to 4,115.93, as of 04:32 UTC.