Passersby walk past a screen displaying Japan’s Nikkei share average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan October 15, 2026.
| Photo Credit:
Issei Kato

Asian shares fell sharply Thursday with markets in South Korea and Japan sinking, as a sell-off of technology shares deepened after US stocks fell on hotter-than-expected inflation data.

US equity futures were lower.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index lost 7.7% to 5,548.78. It was well below the 9,000 mark that it crossed in June at its all-time high driven by optimism over the global artificial intelligence frenzy.

Samsung Electronics slid 9.5% and South Korean memory chipmaker SK Hynix plunged 11.4%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbled 4.8% to 64,489.06. OpenAI investor SoftBank Group lost 9.4%. Chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron dropped 7.3%, and memory chipmaker Kioxia Holdings lost 11.2%.

Taiwan’s Taiex, which also benefited from the AI boom, fell 3%. Its leading chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., or TSMC, dropped 2.2% ahead of its earnings report.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1% to 24,071.25. The Shanghai Composite index slipped 1.4% to 3,713.22.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 edged down 0.1% to 8,715.60.

The declines followed losses on Wall Street on Wednesday. The S&P 500 dropped 1.1%, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1%, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite slipped 1.9% as AI-related stocks fell.

Nvidia lost 3.2%, Broadcom gave up 3.1%, and Advanced Micro Devices, or AMD, declined 5.7%.

The US reported Wednesday that the consumer price index rose 3.7% year-on-year in September, up from 3.4% in August and worse than what economists had expected.

Published on October 15, 2026