The key facts

  • Hong Kong's Hang Seng rose 2.8%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 1.9%, while South Korea's Kospi fell more than 4%
  • Trump Media & Technology Group lost 24.5% in a day, Tesla 3.3%, Lockheed Martin 6.9%
  • Brent is trading around $94 a barrel — a roughly two-month low

Asia reacted selectively

Asian trading on Thursday was uneven: markets less tied to the artificial intelligence industry rose, while shares of AI companies continued to lose value. As reported by Euronews, Hong Kong's Hang Seng jumped 2.8% to 24,597.59, Shanghai's Shanghai Composite added 0.1%, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.9% to 9,003.40.

Selling in the chip sector

Against this backdrop, the selloff of artificial intelligence-related stocks intensified. South Korea's Kospi fell more than 4% during trading amid heavy selling of chipmakers' shares, and by late morning it was down 3.5% (5,484.38). Samsung Electronics dropped 5.7%, SK Hynix 7.4%. In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.5% to 61,914.53: OpenAI investor SoftBank Group lost 5.3%, Tokyo Electron 7.7%, Advantest 9.4%. Taiwan's Taiex fell 1.6%. According to the outlet, the Republicans' defeat added to doubts about whether share prices that have surged on the wave of AI investment are overvalued, since Trump was a major backer of the industry.

What happened on Wall Street the day before

On Wednesday, after the Republicans' nationwide losses in the midterm elections, a broad rally on Wall Street was led by shares of hospital owners and discounters catering to low-income Americans. Euronews notes that in the long run the elections may not matter much for the market: share prices depend more on corporate profits and interest rates than on the political balance in Washington. At the same time, investors generally prefer divided control of government, since it reduces the risk of abrupt changes in economic policy.

The losers: Trump, Musk, defense and oil companies

The market also singled out groups at risk. Trump Media & Technology Group was among the day's biggest losers, dropping 24.5%: from a peak of $175 five years ago, the stock has fallen to $4.49, and the company's core business is the Truth Social platform. Elon Musk's businesses, a major donor to Republicans, also slumped: Tesla down 3.3%, SpaceX down 3.8%; the outlet notes that Musk, a former Trump adviser, is among the potential targets of congressional investigations under Democratic control. The defense sector suffered on the assumption that a Democratic Congress could push Trump toward backing away from the war with Iran: Lockheed Martin lost 6.9%, Northrop Grumman 4.5%, General Dynamics 2.6%. The same logic hit oil companies, which had risen for most of the year: ExxonMobil down 4.6%, ConocoPhillips down 5.2%. Brent held near $94 a barrel on Thursday — roughly a two-month low. The dollar fell to 157.96 yen (from 158.41), while the euro rose to $1.1256.