The market instability is the biggest theme of today, as the tech stocks are currently struggling and pulling down the global indices, and even sending Bitcoin into a nosedive.
The simplified breakdown of the market volatility is below:
Huge Sell-Off Among Tech Stocks
The major story on Wall Street and within Asia is the huge sell-off in tech stocks. Investors are increasingly worried that the billions of dollars invested in AI might not give adequate returns against expectations.
Amazon’s stocks are dropped by 11% after announcing its plans to spend an astounding amount of $200 billion on AI. Similarly, Qualcomm reported a drop of 8.5% despite reporting decent earnings. The novel AI tools of Anthropic are also terrifying investors, as the usefulness of the tools might dominate the conventional software companies.
Bitcoin’s Fall
Bitcoin has also reported a rough night and recorded a drop of 8%, i.e., $65,000. Currently, Bitcoin is trading at approximately half of its record high of $124,000 in October. All the gains that occurred in Bitcoin since the US election have melted down as the Trump Trade fervour has waned.
Snapshot of the Asian Market
The majority of the Asian stocks followed the downward trend prevalent on Wall Street, with Japan surprisingly acting as a bright spot.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan has recorded a loss of up to 0.8%. Tokyo Electron and SoftBank, the tech giants, have led the recovery, and all eyes are now on Sunday’s General Election.
KOSPI in South Korea has dropped by 1.4% with Samsung and SK Hynix recording severe losses.
Hang Seng in Hong Kong also showed a decline of 1.4% as the tech rout rolled in. ASX in Australia also fell by 2% in a broader meltdown.
Moreover, in one of the major corporate news, Toyota has declared that its CEO, Kenta Toyo will be replaced by its current CFO, Kenta Kon. As a result of this, Toyota’s shares increased by 2%.
Read: The “Loonie” Fights Back: Why Recovering Oil is Keeping the Canadian Dollar Steady
Gold, Silver, and Oil
The precious metals, including gold and silver, also had a wild week. After a huge rally, both metals are now witnessing heavy selling. The gold prices declined to $4,858 while silver prices decreased by 5%.
On the other hand, oil prices showed a slight increase with the US crude oil trading close to $63.64 as traders are watching for the outcome of US-Iran talks.
Final Thoughts
The market is presently going through a phase of show me money, especially in the context of AI. Thus, the stocks and crypto will remain under pressure unless big tech companies prove that their huge spending can lead to good returns.
