Asian markets slide as the AI and chip trade unwinds
Asian equity markets fell sharply , with South Korea’s KOSPI down about 5.7% and Japan’s Nikkei 225 off roughly 3.9%, as investors unwound crowded bets on semiconductor and AI-related stocks. The slide tracked a softer session on Wall Street, where the Nasdaq gave up early gains after Apple fell more than 6% .
The trigger was Apple’s warning that rising memory and storage prices would force it to raise prices on Macs and iPads — a sign that the soaring cost of AI infrastructure is now feeding into hardware makers’ margins. That overshadowed strong recent earnings from memory supplier Micron, which earlier in the week had buoyed the sector.
After months in which AI and chip enthusiasm drove much of the region’s gains, the pullback reflects how concentrated those positions had become: when the same names lead both up and down, a single cost warning can cascade quickly across the market.