AFP|Published
Technology firms led losses across stock markets on Tuesday on growing fears about the AI investment boom ahead of earnings reports from major companies in the sector.
Google caused a stir by revealing that "multiple" Cloud services provided by the US tech giant from its European data centre based in London were experiencing serious network disruptions, affecting in particular UK banks.
Adding to the unrest, oil prices surged on increased fears of supply disruptions heading into the northern hemisphere winter, with the main US crude contract West Texas Intermediate jumping more than five percent before settling for a 2.2 percent rise at $105.92 per barrel.
Brent North Sea crude added 0.2 percent to $109.67 per barrel.
Around half an hour into trading, Wall Street was in the red on continued volatility in artificial intelligence shares as investors digested mixed earnings from industrial companies.
"We're back to having the same concerns that we had before," said Steve Sosnick of Interactive Brokers, referring to worries about AI profitability, though he said traders were "still conditioned to buy every dip".
The broad-based S&P 500 and the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index gave up a handful of percentage points but the Dow was up 0.3 percent.
"Last night's tech recovery on Wall Street didn't carry over into Asian markets with AI-related names in the region facing renewed pressure on their share prices," said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould, as European markets struggled with London, Frankfurt and Paris all off around half of one percent.
In Asia, Seoul and Tokyo again bore the brunt of the selling as chip giants SK hynix, Samsung and Kioxia took another beating owing to a sharp exit from a sector that saw blistering gains in the first half of this year.
South Korea's Kospi stocks index sank nearly four percent, with SK hynix off 4.2 percent and Samsung down three percent.
Further weighing on sentiment was the data centre infrastructure firm Elice, whose shares collapsed more than 30 percent on their trading debut.
The euro held steady against the dollar but remained under pressure as France and Italy were rocked by violent cost-of-living protests that have pushed up government bond yields.
The yield on France's 10-year government bond rose to 4.94 percent Tuesday, more than 150 basis points above the comparable German government bond, considered the European benchmark of creditworthiness.
The resulting spread between the two yields is the highest since the closing levels of January 2012, when the eurozone was in the midst of a credit crisis that required market interventions by the European Central Bank to keep borrowing costs from spiralling.
Key figures at around 4pm (SA time)
- New York - Dow: UP 0.3 percent at 52,138.51 points
- New York - S&P 500: DOWN 0.1 percent at 7,682.90
- New York - Nasdaq Composite: DOWN 0.5 percent at 26,292.05
- London - FTSE 100: DOWN 0.6 percent at 10,699.89
- Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.7 percent at 7,811.65
- Frankfurt - DAX: DOWN 0.6 percent at 25,169.71
- Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 1.3 percent at 64,075.52 (close)
- Seoul - Kospi: DOWN 3.7 percent at 5,552.74 (close)
- Hong Kong - Hang Seng Index: DOWN 1.3 percent at 23,867.74 (close)
- Shanghai - Composite: UP 0.1 percent at 3,735.37 (close)
- West Texas Intermediate: UP 2.2 percent at $105.92 per barrel
- Brent North Sea crude: UP 0.2 percent at $109.67 per barrel
- Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1234 from $1.1211 on Monday
- Pound/dollar: UP at $1.3393 from $1.3304
- Dollar/yen: DOWN at 157.96 yen from 158.55 yen
- Euro/pound: DOWN at 83.87 pence from 84.27 pence
AFP