Asia stocks plunge: Nikkei and KOSPI drop about 6% after US AI rout

Asian equity markets sold off sharply on Friday, 6 November, after a US tech rout tied to artificial-intelligence spending and regulation fears. Japan’s Nikkei and South Korea’s KOSPI each slumped about 6% — for the Nikkei, the deepest one-day drop since the April 2025 “Liberation Day” tariff panic, Reuters reported.

Where it hit hardest

• Taiwan’s benchmark plunged more than 8% at one point before recovering to close down about 4.5%; for the week it was down 12.2%, the biggest weekly drop since 1991, according to LSEG data cited by Reuters.
• SoftBank fell 11% in Japan; the cost of insuring its debt against default jumped to a four-year high.
• Europe’s main bourses were down more than 1.5% early Friday as the selloff continued.

Officials step in

South Korea temporarily eased rules on retail investors’ leveraged investments. Multiple sources told Reuters that Taiwan’s Finance Ministry called senior executives at state-owned banks and instructed them to support the market.

Safe-haven flows

Investors piled into government bonds and currencies such as the US dollar, yen and Swiss franc. Japan’s 10-year government bond yield fell as far as 1.795% overnight, the lowest since 30 June. German bund yields also dipped before edging back up.

“This has been brutal,” Marlborough fund manager James Athey told Reuters, saying retail and hedge-fund selling had been feeding off each other. Nasdaq futures pointed higher later Friday, but strategists said belief in the AI trade faces a major test in coming days.