Asian stocks are mixed after Wall Street losses following economic updates
Aug 26, 2026, 10:10 PM
HONG KONG (AP) — Asian stocks were mixed on Thursday following modest losses on Wall Street, while oil prices declined.
U.S. futures were trading higher after Nvidia’s latest quarterly earnings beat Wall Street’s expectations as demand for its advanced artificial intelligence chips surged.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.2% to 66,162.72. Multinational investment holding firm SoftBank Group, which invests in OpenAI, gained 0.1%.
South Korea’s Kospi rose 1.5% to 6,909.81. Shares of market heavyweight Samsung Electronics were 2% higher.
Japan’s and South Korea’s stock markets have been among the biggest beneficiaries from the global AI frenzy, alongside Taiwan’s market. Its benchmark Taiex index added 0.5%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 0.4% to 25,548.83. The Shanghai Composite index rose 0.6% to 3,935.99.
China reported that growth in industrial profits slowed in July to 11.2%, down from 15.1% in June.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was 0.9% lower at 9,041.70.
India’s Sensex edged down 0.1%.
On Wednesday, Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 fell less than 0.1% but was still near its record high levels. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.2%, while the technology-heavy Nasdaq composite dipped 0.1%.
Nvidia, one of the world’s most valuable companies, reported after markets closed Wednesday that its revenue for the May-July quarter more than doubled from the year before.
Its earnings results are widely seen as a bellwether for the broader AI and chips industry, and big investments by tech giants in AI have sparked concerns among many investors over an AI bubble. The worry is that the companies may not generate enough profits within an expected timeframe to justify rising costs.
Outside of earnings reports, Meta Platforms added 1.1% after agreeing to pay up to $18 billion and to add child-safety measures to Facebook and Instagram to end a landmark trial over teen social media addiction and settle claims filed by states across the country.
Data released Wednesday showed the U.S. economy grew at a 1.5% pace in the April-June period, according to a revised estimate.
The inflation measure the Federal Reserve has historically preferred to use sat at 3.7% last month, the same rate as in June. That is slightly worse than the 3.6% that economists expected, according to FactSet and far above the Fed’s 2% goal.
In other dealings early Thursday, Brent crude, the international standard, lost 0.5% to $86.49 per barrel. It was trading at around $72 a barrel in late February before the war in Iran began.
Benchmark U.S. crude fell 0.5% to $81.84 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar rose to 159.38 Japanese yen from 159.31 yen. The euro was trading at $1.1655, up from $1.1651.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed to this report.
