US futures and Asian shares traded mostly lower on Friday, tracking Wall Street’s losses as technology stocks again dragged on markets.
Bitcoin sank to roughly half its record price, giving back all it gained since US President Donald Trump won the White House for his second term.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.8% to 54,253.68, recovering from losses earlier this week, with technology-related stocks leading gains. SoftBank Group rose 2.2% and chipmaker Tokyo Electron rose 2.6%. Japan will also be holding its general election on Sunday, in which Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi expects to win a stronger public mandate for her policies.
Shares of Toyota Motor were up 2%. The carmaker said Friday its CEO Koji Sato will be stepping down in April, and is to be replaced by Chief Financial Officer Kenta Kon, The Associated Press said.
South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.4% to 5,089.14, weighed down by tech shares. Samsung Electronics, the country’s biggest listed company, fell 0.4%. Chipmaker SK Hynix was also down 0.4%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.4% to 26,519.60. The Shanghai Composite index was down 0.3% to 4,065.58.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 2% to 8,708.80.
Taiwan’s Taiex was mostly flat. India's Sensex traded 0.1% lower.
Against the backdrop of the technology sell-off this week, bitcoin, the world’s largest cryptocurrency, saw dimming enthusiasm and was trading about 8% lower at just under $65,000 early Friday, after it briefly sank over 12% to below $64,000 on Thursday. That’s down from a record of above $124,000 in October.
The future for the S&P 500 was 0.2% lower, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.1%.
On Thursday, the S&P 500 fell 1.2% to 6,798.40, its sixth loss in the seven days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.2% to 48,908.72. The Nasdaq composite dropped 1.6% to 22,540.59.
Technology stocks were among the worst hit as concerns persist over whether massive AI investments by many of the Big Tech firms will pay off.
Chipmaker Qualcomm sank 8.5% despite better-than-expected quarterly revenues. Alphabet lost 0.5% as investors were focused on its huge spendings on AI.
Amazon fell 11% in after hours trading Thursday after it announced plans to boost capital spending by more than 50% to $200 billion in AI and other areas.
American artificial intelligence startup Anthropic ’s new AI tools also fueled the sell-off of software stocks on Wall Street this week, as its sophistication means many traditional software development services and products could be disrupted or replaced.
Gold and silver prices have been volatile this week following a monthslong rally as investors moved into safe haven assets prompted by factors including elevated geopolitical tensions. Gold prices fell 0.6% on Friday to $4,858.60 per ounce, after nearing $5,600 last week.
Silver prices dropped 5.5% to $72.52 per ounce after rising earlier this week. It lost more than 31% last Friday.
In other dealings early Friday, US benchmark crude oil gained 35 cents to $63.64 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 36 cents to $67.91 a barrel.
The US dollar fell to 156.74 Japanese yen from 157.03 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1789, up from $1.1777.
