World shares retreat after losses for Big Tech pull US stocks lower

Shares in Europe and Asia retreated yesterday following a decline on Wall Street spurred by selling of Big Tech shares.

But benchmarks in Asia recovered much of the ground lost earlier in the day, when Tokyo’s Nikkei fell nearly 5%. It recovered to close 2.5% lower, at 50,212.27.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX gave up 0.7% to 23,777.85, while the CAC 40 in Paris shed 0.4% to 8,039.32. Britain’s FTSE 100 edged 0.1% lower, to 9,707.18.

The future for the S&P 500 slipped 0.1%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% higher.

The spillover from Wall Street was evident. Shares in energy and tech giant SoftBank Group sank 10% on jitters over its investments in artificial intelligence. Computer chip maker Tokyo Electron dropped 4.1%, while stock in Advantest Corp., a maker of semiconductor testing equipment, lost 6%.

Toyota Motor Corp. lost 3.7%. The company reported a 7% decline in its profit for the April-September period, but raised its earnings forecast for the year, despite U.S. President Donald Trump’s higher tariffs on imports of autos and auto parts.

South Korea’s Kospi declined 2.9% to 4,004.42 as Samsung Electronics shed 4.1%. SK Hynix, which had logged major gains thanks to plans to develop artificial intelligence with chip maker Nvidia, lost 1.2%.

Chinese markets wavered between gains and losses. The Shanghai Composite index recovered from modest earlier losses to edge 0.2% higher, to 3,969.25. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 0.1% to 25,935.41.

Investors apparently took fright from heavy selling of high tech related shares overnight on Wall Street. The technology sector has been driving gains this year, and huge values for companies including Nvidia and Microsoft give them outsized influence over the broader market’s direction. ELAINE KURTENBACH, BANGKOK, MDT/AP