Asia-Pacific markets fall, as AI stocks resume sell-off

Asia-Pacific markets fell Friday, tracking Wall Street declines on persistent concerns over lofty valuations in artificial intelligence stocks, reports CNBC.
Shares of major AI companies fell Thursday stateside, weighing down on the broader US market. The biggest declines were from Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir Technologies, Broadcom, and Advanced Micro Devices.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index tumbled 1.19 per cent to close at 50,276.37. Shares of AI-related stocks were the key drag: SoftBank closed 6.87 per cent lower, semiconductor testing equipment maker Advantest lost 5.54 per cent, chipmaker Renesas Electronics fell 3.75 per cent, and Tokyo Electron, a chip production equipment maker, declined 1.35 per cent.
The Topix index ended nearly at 3,298.85.
South Korea's Kospi fell 1.81 per cent to 3,953.76 in volatile trading, while the small-cap Kosdaq lost 2.38 per cent to 876.81. The country's memory chip giants, Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, lost 1.31 per cent and 2.19 per cent, respectively.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.66 per cent to settle at 8,769.7.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.92 per cent to end at 26,241.83, while the mainland's CSI 300 lost 0.31 per cent to 4,678.79.
India's Nifty 50 reversed course to rise 0.11 per cent, while the Sensex index was flat.
Shares of Bharti Airtel slumped after a unit of Singapore-based telecom firm Singtel announced Friday it had sold a stake in the Indian company for 1.5 billion Singapore dollars ($1.15 billion).