AI Trade — Kospi Swings 7% on AMD and the Midterms, Closes Green; Nasdaq Futures Recover
Asia is where the AI trade shows first each morning, and this morning it took both of the night's stories in one session. Korea's Kospi opened 3.2% higher after AMD's report, fell as much as 4.0% below Tuesday's close by 03:45 UTC as the US election results came in, and closed up 0.62%. SK Hynix went from +5.6% to −6.8% and closed flat; Samsung Electronics from +3.9% to −5.2% and closed down 0.7%; TSMC fell as much as 2.6% and closed down 1.5%; in Tokyo, Advantest and SoftBank Group fell as much as 10% and closed down about 3%. Taiwan's index fell as much as 3.4% and closed down 0.83%, and Japan's Nikkei, back from a holiday, fell as much as 4.8% and closed down 1.42%. Shenzhen rose 4.0%.
Democrats won the House and the Senate. Nasdaq-100 futures fell as much as 2.4% overnight and by midday stood 0.4% above Tuesday's close, while Dow futures rose 1.6% and the Russell 2000 of smaller companies 1.3%. For tech the result pulls two ways. Data-centre construction may slow: at least 10 communities voted for bans or limits on new data centres, and Texas elected a governor who wants a pause on new projects. In Europe the cable maker Prysmian fell 3.8%, Siemens Energy 2.6% and ASML 1.9% while the Euro Stoxx 50 rose 1.6%. Tariffs face more political pressure, which helps Europe and Asia: the euro rose 0.7% and the Hang Seng 1.7%.