Global stocks fell sharply Tuesday and appeared poised to extend losses in a sell-off driven by tech heavyweights. The Nasdaq composite index was down more than 2 percent at the market’s open.
South Korea’s KOSPI index fell nearly 10 percent, with Samsung Electronics and semiconductor maker SK Hynix each losing more than 12 percent of their value. The sell-off triggered a trading halt Tuesday afternoon, according to South Korean news agency Yonhap.
The Nasdaq was down 2.4 percent at the market open, with the S&P 500 down 1.6 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei index closed nearly 4 percent down, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index lost nearly 2 percent. Markets in Europe also lost ground Tuesday, including the United Kingdom’s FTSE 250, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC 40.
The cooling sentiment follows signals of higher interest rates and concern over the level of spending on AI investment, which has driven markets to record highs.
Tech giants suffered some of the biggest losses. Shares of SpaceX, following its record-breaking initial public offering this month, opened nearly 4 percent lower, after falling 16 percent Monday. Oracle opened about 3 percent lower, while Alphabet continued to slide after closing down 5 percent on Monday, its worst trading day since last year.
Several major chipmakers also suffered sharp losses at the market’s open. Intel and AMD opened down nearly 8 percent and Qualcomm dropped 7.4 percent. Chip giant Nvidia also lost nearly 3 percent.
Amazon, however, ticked up in opening hours with the beginning of its Prime Day event after several weeks of decline (Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post). Microsoft also made small gains Tuesday morning.
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