South Korea and Japan lead losses as Asia witnesses widespread selling. Australian shares have hit a one-year low

Stock indexes in Japan and South Korea fell more than 2% on Thursday as investors took cues from Wall Street overnight.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell by 2.13%. South Korea’s Kospi index fell 2.20% to its lowest level since early January.

South Korea’s Kosdaq index fell more than 3%. Shares of South Korean technology companies were also under pressure due to a 3.63% decline in chip maker SK Hynix after announcing its quarterly results.

Investors also weighed data out of South Korea that showed the economy grew at a slightly higher pace than expected in the third quarter.

– Shreyashi Sanyal

Shares of South Korean chip supplier SK Hynix fell 3.92% after the company reported a net loss of 2.18 trillion won ($1.61 billion) in the third quarter, in contrast to a net profit of 1.11 trillion won in the same period last year.

Revenue fell 17% year-on-year to 9.07 trillion won. The company also recorded an operating loss of 1.79 trillion won, compared to an operating profit of 1.66 trillion won in the third quarter of 2022.

However, SK Hynix highlighted that on a quarterly basis, its losses narrowed with net loss and operating losses shrinking by 27% and 38% respectively compared to the second quarter.

“As the impact of production cuts by global memory providers and customers begins to be felt, following efforts to reduce inventories, and now placing new orders, semiconductor prices are beginning to stabilize,” the company said.

– Lim Hui Ji

South Korea’s economy grew slightly faster than expected in the third quarter, according to data from the Bank of Korea.

GDP grew by 0.6% in the July-September quarter compared to the previous quarter. A Reuters survey had expected an average increase of 0.5 percent in the third quarter.

The focus will now shift to the BOK’s next policy meeting in late November, where we are set to see how economic data points like these will influence the central bank’s monetary policy decision.

– Shreyashi Sanyal

Bill Ackman of Pershing Square made about $200 million from his most recent trade in Treasury securities, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the bet.

The hedge fund manager revealed Monday that he hedged his bet against 30-year Treasuries, believing investors may increasingly buy bonds as a safe haven due to rising geopolitical risks.

“There is too much risk in the world to remain short on bonds at current long-term rates,” Ackman said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday morning. “We have short covered our bonds.”

The company’s flagship fund was up 11.6% this year through October 17.

– Yun Lee

Alphabet shares fell more than 8%, their biggest drop in nearly a year, a day after Google Cloud reported third-quarter revenue that fell short of Wall Street expectations.

The disappointment from Alphabet coincided with Microsoft’s earnings that showed Azure’s growth accelerating.

Despite beating expectations on the bottom line, revenue for the search giant’s Google Cloud was $8.41 billion, lower than the $8.64 billion expected by analysts surveyed by StreetAccount.

-Samantha Sobin

Shares of popular technology companies fell on Wednesday, sending the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite indexes down 1.4% and 2.3%, respectively.

Alphabet shares fell 10% and were on track for their worst day since March 2020 after reporting cloud revenue that fell short of expectations. Dominant AI chipmaker Nvidia fell 4%, while Amazon fell 5.5%.

Another contributor to Wednesday’s declines was Meta Platforms. Facebook’s parent company is set to report earnings after the bell dropped 4%. Salesforce and Advanced Micro Devices also declined, falling 3.7% and 5.5%, respectively. Intel shares fell by 5.3%.

Microsoft was able to buck the broader downtrend, gaining nearly 3% on stronger-than-expected results. Apple and Tesla shares were on track to suffer smaller losses, falling 1.7% and 1%, respectively.

-Samantha Sobin

Wednesday’s sell-off pushed the S&P 500 below 4,200 — a technical level closely watched on Wall Street. This will be the index’s first close below this level since May 31, when it closed at 4,179.83.