Asia markets mostly rise after Wall Street trades mixed; SoftBank falls as much as 10% after selling entire stake in Nvidia
Lujiazui Business Districk in Pudong, Shanghai, China.
Liqun Liu | Construction Photography | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
SoftBank Group shares fell as much as 10% Wednesday after the company said it sold its entire stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion, as the Japanese giant looks to capitalize on its “all in” bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
In its earnings report, SoftBank said it sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October, and also trimmed its T-Mobile position, raising $9.17 billion.
Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Wednesday, after Wall Street traded mixed on hopes that the record-setting U.S. government shutdown could be nearing an end and AI trade stumbling.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.26%, while the Topix added 0.35%. South Korea’s Kospi was flat, while the small-cap Kosdaq added 0.62%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.13%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index added 0.25%, while mainland’s CSI 300 was flat.
Investors will be keeping a close eye on SoftBank shares as well as tech stocks in Asia after the Japanese giant said Tuesday it sold its entire stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion, as it looks to capitalize on its “all in” bet on ChatGPT maker OpenAI.
Overnight in the U.S., the three major averages closed mixed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied to a fresh closing record Tuesday, while the Nasdaq Composite struggled as investors moved money away from technology stocks into other parts of the market that traded at lower valuations.
The 30-stock Dow rose 559.33 points, or 1.18%, to close at 47,927.96, with those on Wall Street buying up shares of various blue-chip names, including health care giants Merck, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. The S&P 500 also rose 0.21% to finish at 6,846.61. However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.25% to settle at 23,468.30.
— CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.
