Business · World News Bureau

Asia's AI unwind: Seoul halt, Hong Kong rally

A Kospi sidecar and a 3.67% Hang Seng jump on the same day drew a hard line between Asia's AI hardware exporters and everyone else.

LSN World News · 6 November 2026

Asia's AI unwind: Seoul halt, Hong Kong rally

<p><em>Special Reporting from LSN News, adapted from today's Asia Money Map episode. <a href="https://youtu.be/i6Z2QA9wLQM" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Watch the video on YouTube.</a></em></p>

<p>South Korea's Kospi fell 5.28% on Thursday to close at 5,383.80, according to the Korea Herald. The exchange triggered a sell-side sidecar at 10:16am, a five-minute halt on program selling. Samsung Electronics fell 7.57% and SK Hynix dropped 9.46%, as Asia's AI and chip trade unwound while Hong Kong rallied hard.</p>

<p>The driver sits in Washington. The Democrats' sweep of both chambers of Congress has investors pricing tighter regulation of AI data centres in the United States. Overnight, the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index fell 3.13% to a six-month low after soft results from Qualcomm and Arm Holdings, and that risk hit Asia's chip exporters hardest.</p>

<h2>Seoul, Taipei and Tokyo take the chip hit</h2>

<p>Foreign investors sold a net 3.39 trillion won of Korean shares. Mirae Asset Securities' Kim Seok-hwan told the Korea Herald the blue wave dragged down semiconductor value chains and stoked a foreign sell-off. Samsung Securities' Jo Ah-in said concerns about slower data centre investment are weighing on Korean chipmakers' earnings outlook.</p>

<p>Taiwan's Taiex fell 3.2% to 41,574.72, its lowest close since 31 July, according to Focus Taiwan. Foreign institutions sold a net NT$102.46 billion. MediaTek fell nearly 7%, and cooling and printed-circuit names hit their daily limits. TSMC slipped less than 1%, but the board around it was hammered.</p>

<p>In Tokyo, the price-weighted Nikkei fell 1.79% to 61,077.90 while the broader Topix rose 1.16%. Advantest plunged 14.71% and Tokyo Electron fell 9.42%. Nomura's Wataru Akiyama told Reuters that funds flowing into AI and semiconductors have shifted to other sectors. Toyota Motor surged about 16.7% after raising its full-year operating profit forecast to 3.9 trillion yen, the rotation in a single stock: out of AI hardware, into cash-rich industrials.</p>

<h2>Hong Kong and China go the other way</h2>

<p>The Hang Seng jumped 3.67% to 24,796.98, according to the South China Morning Post, and the Hang Seng Tech Index rose 5.55%. Alibaba climbed 8.5% and Tencent rose 7.2%. On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.1%, the Shenzhen Component rose 1.19% and the chip-heavy Star 50 gained 1.7%. Daiwa Securities said Democratic control may tighten tech exports to China and accelerate Beijing's self-reliance push. A day earlier, the People's Bank of China cut its stock-buyback relending rate to 1%, and banks applied for more than 200 billion yuan in quotas, according to Xinhua.</p>

<h2>Oil relief for importers, but fragile</h2>

<p>South and Southeast Asia caught the oil-relief side. Brent settled at $94.62 on Wednesday, down 8.7%. On Thursday, Indian shares posted their biggest gain in seven months, with the Nifty 50 up 2.4% to 24,536.6, Reuters reports, and IndiGo up 5.4% as jet-fuel costs eased. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 surged 2.61% to 9,065.1 after the trade surplus of A$2.83 billion nearly tripled forecasts. Singapore's Straits Times Index rose 0.5% to 5,296.25.</p>

<p>Oil did not stay soft. Brent rebounded 3.8% to $98.29 at Thursday's settle, CNBC reports, as tanker attacks reminded markets the Iran war is not over. The relief for Asia's importers is real, but fragile.</p>

<p>Our read: this was the session that crystallised the AI unwind. Korea and Taiwan's chip exporters took the hit, Japan's chip equipment names crashed while Toyota soared, and China and Hong Kong outperformed on state support and a rotation into undervalued tech platforms. Investors should price in slower US data-centre approvals for the chip chain, keep China's domestic chip and buyback story separate, and treat the oil rebound as a warning that Middle East risk is still live. The AI trade did not die on Thursday. It got repriced.</p>

<h2>Sources</h2>

<ul>

<li><a href="https://www.koreaherald.com/article/10927473" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Korea Herald</a></li>

<li><a href="https://www.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_business/1285975.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Hankyoreh</a></li>

<li><a href="https://www.koreajoongangdaily.com/business/kospi-sidecar-triggered-as-ai-jitters-hit/12957018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Korea JoongAng Daily</a></li>

<li><a href="https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202611050014" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Focus Taiwan</a></li>

<li><a href="https://www.thestandard.com.hk/finance/article/347630/Hang-Seng-Index-surges-nearly-900-points-at-close" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Standard</a></li>

<li><a href="https://bullquill.com/japan-stocks-daily-brief-2026-11-05/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bullquill (Jiji/Yahoo/Reuters)</a></li>

<li><a href="https://uk.marketscreener.com/news/indian-benchmarks-open-near-three-month-highs-as-oil-slides-after-us-democratic-win-ce785fdcd889f02c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Reuters/MarketScreener</a></li>

<li><a href="https://www.investing.com/news/economic-indicators/australia-trade-surplus-nearly-triples-forecasts-as-gold-imports-dive-in-september-5001957" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Investing.com</a></li>

<li><a href="https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/companies-markets/singapore-shares-rise-strong-win-democrats-sti-0-5" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Business Times</a></li>

<li><a href="https://english.news.cn/20261104/df5c41a879274395a6af13ef47144392/c.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Xinhua</a></li>

</ul>