TOKYO — Asian shares and U.S. futures declined Thursday as concerns over leadership at chipmaker Nvidia weighed on artificial intelligence -related stocks.
In after-hours trading, Nvidia’s shares fell 8.6% after reports said Nvidia’s board was meeting late Wednesday to discuss the situation surrounding its CEO, Jensen Huang, whose affair with a Chinese woman has raised national security concerns in the U.S.
Nvidia ‘s shares climbed 2.9% on Wednesday. Its shares have fallen after the company said it was investigating Huang, who has admitted to a relationship with a businesswoman who allegedly fed intelligence and advanced chips to China.
U.S. futures edged lower.
In Asian trading, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 shed 0.7% to 60,798.84.
In South Korea, the Kospi gave up early gains to slip 0.2% to 5,364.26.
Taiwan’s Taiex lost 2.6%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined nearly 0.1% to 9,146.80.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.2% to 24,034.38, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.6% to 3,657.03.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 rose 1.3%, nearly recovering all of its brutal sell-off from last week triggered by worries about a potential slowdown for AI-related businesses. The index pulled within 2.6% of its all-time high set last month. The Nasdaq composite rallied a market-leading 1.6%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 254 points, or 0.5%.
Leading the way was one of the stocks that’s been at the center of the AI industry’s manic recent swings. CoreWeave, which rents out access to AI chips to customers over the cloud, leaped 24.7% after showing investors that it lost less money during the summer than analysts expected.
Apart from Nvidia’s situation, investors are worried about a potential slowdown in the overall AI industry given longstanding questions about whether it will prove profitable enough to make massive investments in the technology worthwhile.
Benchmark U.S. crude fell 0.28% to $86.29 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 0.27% to $92.51 a barrel. Brent has vacillated within a range of $72 to $120 since the war with Iran pushed prices much higher.
The U.S. bond market was closed Wednesday in observance of Veterans Day.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar fell to 159.78 Japanese yen from 159.79 yen. The euro cost $1.1080, down from $1.1091.
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Yuri Kageyama is on Threads: https://www.threads.com/@yurikageyama
