[SINGAPORE] Asian markets ended the week largely in the red on Friday (Feb 6), taking the cue from the US markets on Thursday, when tech stocks and crypto slumped over concerns of soaring artificial intelligence (AI) spending.
Investors reacted badly to the news that Amazon plans to spend US$200 billion this year on data centres, chips and other equipment, concerned over whether the costly investments will be justified by the financial returns.
In Singapore, the Straits Times Index (STI) : *STI -0.83% dropped 0.7 per cent in the first 30 minutes of trading and was still down that amount by midday. The index closed at 4,934.41, 0.8 per cent or 41.46 points lower.
Yangzijiang Shipbuilding : BS6 -6.23% was among the worst-hit of the blue chips on the Singapore Exchange, closing 6.2 per cent or S$0.21 down at S$3.16. Volume traded was high, with 51.4 million shares changing hands.
The shipbuilder was likely also affected by a drop in Maersk earnings and plans for the Danish shipping company to cut 1,000 jobs. Shares of Maersk in Copenhagen fell 3.7 per cent by the close on Thursday.
As at the midday trading break, shares of DBS : D05 -0.6% were down about 0.7 per cent, OCBC : O39 -1.03% dropped 0.9 per cent and Singtel : Z74 -1.26% declined 0.8 per cent.
DBS pared some of its losses to close 0.6 per cent or S$0.36 down at S$59.30. OCBC dropped 1 per cent or S$0.22 to close at S$21.23, and Singtel’s shares retreated 1.3 per cent or S$0.06 to close at S$4.72.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 2 per cent immediately upon market open, but recovered ground to end 1.2 per cent down at market close. Meanwhile, Shanghai’s CSI 300 opened 1 per cent lower, but eased to end 0.6 per cent lower.
South Korea’s Kospi was down 3.9 per cent at 10.30 am local time, but recovered to close 1.4 per cent lower. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei 225 and Topix were down 0.8 and 0.1 per cent at 10.30 am, respectively, but reversed momentum to rise 0.8 per cent and 1.3 per cent by the close.
Reference : Singapore, Asia markets mostly down after Wall Street tech rout – The Business Times