HONG KONG — Asia shares were trading lower Friday, tracking sharp Wall Street losses on a sell-off of technology-related stocks that investors fear could lose out from artificial intelligence disruptions.
U.S. futures edged lower. The future for the S&P 500 fell 0.2%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was also 0.2% lower.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.2% to 56,941.97. SoftBank Group, which has a focus on AI, lost 8.9% even after the company reported a $1.6 billion quarterly profit Thursday building on its investments in OpenAI, among other gains.
South Korea’s Kospi was down 0.3% to 5,507.01 despite earlier gains. Samsung Electronics, the country’s largest listed company, was up 1.5%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.7% to 26,575.84. The Shanghai Composite index was down 1% to 4,091.65.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 traded 1.4% lower at 8,917.60.
On Thursday, Wall Street saw sharp losses as AI worries dampened sentiment. The S&P 500 fell for its second-worst day since Thanksgiving, dropping 1.6%, or 108.71, to 6,832.76, but it’s still near an all-time high that was set last month. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 1.3%, or 669.42, to 49,451.98. The Nasdaq composite lost 2%, or 469.32, to 22,597.15.
American technology giant Cisco Systems sank 12.3% even though it reported better-than-expected quarterly results, as investors were concerned about its ongoing profitability.
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