Stock market today: World shares retreat amid AI-gain sales
Stock market today: World shares retreat amid AI-gain sales
Publish Date: 2026-06-26 06:13:00
Source Domain: www.bnnbloomberg.ca
BANGKOK — World shares retreated Friday, led by heavy losses in Japan and South Korea as traders sold to lock in gains from recent rallies in stocks related to artificial intelligence.
In early European trading, Germany’s DAX gave up 0.8 per cent to 24,793.58, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.4 per cent to 8,398.14. Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.4 per cent to 10,490.62.
The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.2 per cent while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.2 per cent higher.
In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index shed 4.2 per cent to 69,360.88 and the Kospi in Seoul plunged 5.8 per cent to 8,411.21. Both recovered some ground lost earlier in the day.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.8 per cent to 22,667.13, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 2.3 per cent to 4,027.26.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was an outlier, gaining 0.2 per cent to 8,764.20.
Taiwan’s Taiex gave up 3.6 per cent.
The wide swings in Tokyo and Seoul are typical of recent volatility in markets as investors react to the deluge of dollars heading into AI data centers and other investments. Shares in Japan and South Korea hit records this week and logged strong gains on Thursday after chipmakers Qualcomm and Micron Technology reported better than expected earnings.
In South Korea, market trends have been dominated by movements in stock in Samsung Electronics, the country’s biggest company, and chipmaker SK Hynix, which like Samsung is collaborating with Nvidia on artificial intelligence.
Given that concentration, “a strong Micron print can produce a powerful upside chase one day; a new concern around memory costs, capex, or the durability of AI demand can reverse it violently the next,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.
Samsung’s shares lost 5.3 per cent on Friday, while those of SK Hynix fell 8.4 per cent. In Tokyo trading, technology giant SoftBank Group Corp. lost 12.5 per cent and computer chip testing equipment maker Advantest sank 3.2 per…
