Asian stocks slide on November 6 after US$2.5tn tech rout

Asian stocks plunged on November 6, 2026, following a US technology sell-off that erased an estimated US$2.5 trillion from the Nasdaq 100, as investors feared the Democrats’ midterm election victory would slow artificial intelligence (AI) investment.

Japan’s Nikkei entered a bear market and South Korea temporarily halted trading, while Thailand’s SET fell more than 1%. Concerns over possible data centre restrictions compounded doubts about AI investment returns and financing.

Japan enters bear market as Asian shares slide

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell more than 20% below its June peak, entering bear-market territory. At 11.50am Bangkok time, the index stood at 57,446.34, down 3,631.56 points, or 5.95%.

Chip-testing equipment maker Advantest lost about 12%, SoftBank Group and memory-chip maker Kioxia about 11% each, and semiconductor equipment supplier Tokyo Electron almost 9%.

South Korea’s Kospi dropped more than 8%, falling below 5,000 and triggering a 20-minute circuit-breaker halt. The smaller-company Kosdaq lost more than 7%.

SK Hynix fell more than 8%, Samsung Electronics 7%, LG Innotek 10% and LG Display 7.7%, reflecting concerns that slower US data centre expansion would weaken AI chip demand.

Taiwan’s Weighted Index lost 2,089.66 points, or 5.03%, to 39,485.06. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, fell 9.6%. Electronics manufacturer Hon Hai Precision Industry, known as Foxconn, lost 9.4%, while Foxconn Technology fell 9.1%.

Elsewhere, Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 2.4% to 5,169.19; China’s Shenzhen index lost 2.22% and Shanghai Composite 1.14%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng declined 1.13%, Malaysia’s benchmark 1.33% and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 0.82%.

Thailand’s SET lost 16.88 points, or 1.13%, to 1,481.11. All Asian figures were intraday readings.

Before Friday’s falls, the Nikkei and Kospi had gained more than 20% this year, although both had already suffered from Wednesday’s data centre sell-off.

Nasdaq 100 records worst fall since March 2020

The Nasdaq 100 dropped 6.4% on November 5, its worst session since March 2020. Reuters estimated the market-value loss at US$2.5 trillion, approximately 83.6 trillion baht.

Bloomberg reported that selling began shortly after New York trading opened and intensified throughout the session. All 11 S&P 500 sectors declined, from Nvidia to defensive retailer Walmart.

The three main US indices recorded their worst sessions since President Donald Trump’s April 2025 “Liberation Day” tariff announcement:

- Dow Jones Industrial Average: down 1,833.06 points, or 3.44%, to 51,523.06.
- S&P 500: down 334.89 points, or 4.36%, to 7,353.73.
- Nasdaq Composite: down 1,421.52 points, or 5.52%, to 24,315.00.

The Nasdaq Composite stood nearly 12% below its October 6 record close, beyond the 10% correction threshold. AI stocks fell for a second consecutive session, while the Nasdaq Composite recorded its fifth decline exceeding 500 points since mid-October.

The Magnificent Seven technology stocks lost more than US$1 trillion collectively. Nvidia shed more than 9%, wiping out over US$440 billion and leaving its shares down 2.6% this year.

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Micron Technology each plunged 17%. The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index, which includes Nvidia, Intel and AMD, lost 12%, its worst fall since March 2020, reaching a six-month-plus low and standing more than 38% below its June 22 peak, deep in bear-market territory.

Amazon and Alphabet, which had resisted Wednesday’s AI sell-off, each fell 2.2%.

CoreWeave lost 10% and Nebius 15%, leaving both AI cloud providers down by half or more since October 6. Higher interest rates since late summer and tighter financial conditions had already complicated fundraising.

Five-year credit default swap spreads, reflecting default concerns, reached records of 1,267.9 basis points for CoreWeave and 149.7 for Intel, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Data centre operators Applied Digital, Cipher Digital and IREN each lost more than 14%. Equipment supplier GE Vernova fell 7.4% and power producer Constellation Energy 2.5%.

Microsoft dropped 3.6%. Bloomberg reported that it was tightening oversight of some data centre projects involving Nebius, IREN and Nscale.

Calls to pause data centres deepen investment fears

Political concerns intensified after the Democrats’ November 3 election victory. Bernie Sanders, Vermont’s independent senator who caucuses with Democrats, called on X for a “National data center moratorium now”, citing local referendums restricting construction.

Sanders argued that Americans opposed technology billionaires damaging the environment, cutting jobs and threatening humanity’s future.

Texas governor-elect Gina Hinojosa, a Democrat, told CNN that data centre work should pause until protections for residents were established.

Michael O’Rourke, chief market strategist at JonesTrading in Stamford, Connecticut, linked Democratic gains in governorships to a potential construction slowdown.

“The big election outcome was, especially with the Democrats winning a lot of the governorships, that the slowdown of the data center buildout is the real key theme that’s going to stick,” O’Rourke said.

Bruce Zaro, managing director at Granite Wealth Management in Plymouth, Massachusetts, anticipated local resistance.

“There’s going to be a lot of pushback about those data centers being geographically located in someone’s backyard, straining the power grid, straining the water systems,” Zaro said.

“Although there are a number of data centers already approved, there are still a lot to be permitted. There’s going to be a difficult road to get those permitted forthcoming,” Zaro added.

UBS analysts estimated that construction pauses could threaten around 30% of expected US data centre capacity additions in 2028, challenging an industry reliant on rapid expansion.

Large earlier share-price gains and questions about returns on enormous AI spending also fuelled concerns. Some analysts questioned whether the sell-off could affect Anthropic’s initial public offering, expected this autumn, with any delay potentially worsening sentiment.

“The market’s moving from the promise of AI to the price of AI,” said Ted Parkhill, founder and chief executive of Incline Investment Management.

“There’s no question that AI is going to be transformative for the world in the long run. But that doesn’t mean every AI-related stock is currently priced appropriately. There’s going to be a lot of turmoil,” Parkhill said.

Investors buy Treasuries ahead of US jobs report

Investors sought safety in US government bonds. Bloomberg reported that yields across maturities fell by up to 12 basis points to their lowest since early September, while Treasury futures volumes ran about 40% above their 20-day average.

The VIX volatility index jumped 11.57 points to 28.18, its highest since March and its largest increase since December 2024.

October’s US non-farm payrolls report was due on November 6. A Dow Jones poll forecast 59,000 additional jobs, up from September’s 29,000, with unemployment unchanged at 4.2%.

CME FedWatch put the probability of a quarter-percentage-point Federal Reserve rate rise at its December 9 meeting at about 70%.

Victoria Greene, chief investment officer at G Squared Private Wealth, nevertheless viewed the decline as a buying opportunity. Greene favoured memory-chip shares, citing executives’ reports of tight capacity during earnings season.

“The AI trade, in my opinion, is not dead here,” Greene said, describing the sell-off as “a good discount”.