Asian tech stocks rebounded on Monday after a bruising AI sell-off last week pushed many of the region's leading bourses into technical bear markets. Gains were strongest in Taiwan, where the Taiex benchmark jumped 4.9 per cent after the government announced market support measures, including curbs on short selling, on Friday. TSMC, the world's largest contract chipmaker and the index's biggest constituent, rose 4.7 per cent.
In Japan, the tech-heavy Nikkei 225 index gained 2.3 per cent. The stocks of Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix, the two biggest AI memory-chip makers, edged up 0.6 per cent and 0.4 per cent respectively, while South Korea's overall Kospi slipped 0.8 per cent.
The recovery followed sharp drops last week on fears that Democratic wins in US midterm elections would slow the build-out of AI data centres, to which Asian companies have been big suppliers. Friday's declines were the largest since the market turmoil that followed US President Donald Trump's "liberation day" tariffs in April 2025. They pushed many of Asia's tech-heavy indices into technical bear markets, meaning they were down more than 20 per cent from recent peaks. Futures pointed to a further US stock recovery when Wall Street opens, with those tracking the S&P 500 up 0.3 per cent.
Analysts said there was evidence of a broad rotation out of Asian tech stocks linked to the US build-out. Jason Lui, head of Asia-Pacific equity and derivative strategy at BNP Paribas, said investors were "trying to rebalance their positions in a very rapid manner" and had become more selective after July's peak of broad-based buying. Joshua Crabb of Robeco suggested investors diversify toward India, south-east Asia, Hong Kong and Australia, which have less AI exposure and may benefit relatively.
Source: Financial Times Markets · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing