Asian markets tumbled on Friday as a rout in technology and chip shares spread from Wall Street, with Japan's Nikkei entering a bear market and South Korea halting trading after a plunge of more than 8%.

Seoul halts trading after Kospi plunge

South Korea's benchmark Kospi plunged more than 8% in early trade, falling below the 5,000-point mark for the first time in nine months. The Korea Exchange activated a 20-minute circuit breaker at 9:03 a.m. local time, temporarily halting all stock and derivatives trading. The index was down around 500 points, or 8.6%, at 4,923.47 in early trading. Chipmakers led the fall: Samsung Electronics dropped 10%, while SK Hynix lost 13%. By 2 p.m. Korean time the Kospi had recovered some ground to 5,118.73, still down 4.91% on the day.

Nikkei falls 6% into a bear market

Japan's Nikkei 225 closed 6.0% lower, its biggest percentage fall since April 2025. The index had closed above 72,000 for the first time in late June, so the drop leaves it more than 20% below its record high, placing it in bear-market territory. SoftBank Group fell 10.4%, memory-chip producer Kioxia dropped 10.8%, Tokyo Electron lost 5.4% and Advantest fell 4.6%.

What drove the sell-off

The losses followed Wall Street's worst single-day session in more than a year on Thursday, when the Nasdaq fell 5.5%, the S&P 500 dropped 4.4% and the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index plunged 12.3%. Reuters reported that fresh uncertainty over policies on artificial intelligence and data centres, following sweeping gains for the Democratic Party in the US midterm elections, sent shockwaves across hardware and chip suppliers. Hong Kong and Shanghai fell about 1%, while India resisted the slide, with the Sensex up 0.76% by late morning as investors bought software and banking shares.