View of the central business district skyline at sunset in Beijing, China.
Sheng Peng | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were set to open lower Friday, tracking Wall Street declines on persistent concerns over lofty valuations in artificial intelligence stocks.
Shares of major AI companies fell Thursday stateside, weighing down on the broader U.S. market. The biggest declines were from Nvidia, Microsoft, Palantir Technologies, Broadcom and Advanced Micro Devices.
Investors in Asia are watching for China’s October trade data, due later in the day. Economists polled by Reuters expect exports to have slowed to 3% year on year, down from an 8.3% surge in September, while imports are forecast to fall to 3.2% from 7.4%.
That comes as weak domestic demand continues to weigh on the back of a prolonged housing slump, rising job insecurity, and the tapering of consumption-focused stimulus measures.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index was set for a lower open, with its futures contract in Chicago trading at 50,300, and its counterpart in Osaka at 50,200, against the index’s Thursday close of 50,883.68.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.27%.
Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index pointed to a lower open, trading at 26,436, against the index’s previous close of 26,485.9.
U.S. futures edged higher in early Asian hours after Thursday’s tech sell-off.
Overnight, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slid 398.70 points, or 0.84%, to close at 46,912.30. The S&P 500 traded down by 1.12%, to settle at 6,720.32, while the Nasdaq Composite tumbled 1.9% to end at 23,053.99.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Sarah Min contributed to this report.
