In Hong Kong, the benchmark Hang Seng Index opened up 52 points, or 0.23 percent, at 23,011.
The China enterprises index rose 23 points, or 0.31 percent, to 7,779 while the tech index fell 23 points, or 0.63 percent, to 3,720.
Up north, the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index opened down 45 points, or 1.25 percent, at 3,605.
The blue-chip CSI300 headed for its largest monthly fall in a decade, after nearly four months of AI stocks tanking on fears that a slowdown in demand for chips and other data centre equipment could crush revenues.
The Shenzhen Component Index fell 267 points, or 2.4 percent, to 10,871 while the ChiNext Index plunged 3.29 percent to 2,434.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei opened 315 points, or 0.49 percent, down at 64,344 and was 1,742 points lower at one stage before noon as the tech-heavy 225 benchmark tracked overnight losses on Wall Street and was given additional impetus by late earnings from Amazon.com and Intel that showed massive cash burns.
In Seoul, the Kospi dived 177 points, or 2.99 percent, to open at 5,760 before continuing its downward spiral to be 313 points down at one stage before noon, triggering at one point a sidecar trading curb and halting algorithmic trading for five minutes.
The weakness in Asian markets came as shares in Google parent Alphabet fell 12.6 percent on Wall Street and slid a little further after hours, to wipe out a withering US$500 billion in market value, as massive AI spending turned the company’s cash flow negative.
An aftermarket plunge of 23 percent in Intel shares and a drop of seven percent in Amazon stocks, as they too burn through cash, drove Nasdaq 100 futures down 1.4 percent and sent stocks of chipmakers around Asia into a tailspin.
“The market isn’t necessarily questioning whether the AI buildout can be financed,” said Pepperstone analyst Chris Weston.
“It’s increasingly questioning whether shareholders will earn an adequate return on the enormous capital being deployed.”
Nerves were also frayed by a potentially record-breaking hack at Binance, the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, which drove down bitcoin, other cryptocurrency prices and stocks including rival exchange Coinbase.
Investors’ rush into bonds was further spurred further by the Federal Reserve’s Wednesday decision to keep US interest rates on hold, with no firm projection of when it might need to hike next.
Benchmark 10-year US Treasury yields fell by more than seven basis points in Tokyo trade on Friday to 4.91 percent for a fall of some 37 bps through October – the largest one-month drop since December 2023.
The risk-averse mood strengthened haven currencies such as the yen, pushing the currency up about 0.2 percent to 157.47 per US dollar. (Reuters/Xinhua)
