Asian shares were mixed Friday following a selloff of technology shares on Wall Street.
While Big Tech is benefiting from the shift to online life that the pandemic and ensuing stay-at-home economy has accelerated, critics said their stocks prices have surged too high.
“Big tech stocks might have seemed like safe havens, but they have found themselves at the center of a brutal sell-off,” said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at AxiCorp.
The catch is that progress in curbing COVID-19 could hurt technology shares, Innes said.
“But keep your eye on the prize. A virus vaccine is a key to the second leg of growth recovery, which will be globally-coordinated and could run for a while as doses are distributed gradually,” he said.
Asian Shares
- Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 recouped early losses to rise 0.6% to 23,383.87.
- South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.1% to 2,394.09.
- Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.8% to 5,859.40.
- Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.7% to 24,471.29.
- The Shanghai Composite rose 0.6% to 3,255.28.
- Shares were lower in Taiwan but mixed in Southeast Asia.
Oil Prices
- Benchmark U.S. crude oil lost 14 cents to $37.16 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
- Brent, the international standard, fell 16 cents to $39.90 a barrel.
Currency Prices
- The U.S. dollar inched up to 106.17 Japanese yen from 106.15 yen late Thursday.
- The euro rose to $1.1835 from $1.1816.
