Attention is also on US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s Monday conference on a plan to economically isolate Iran
ASIAN stocks edged lower, with the artificial intelligence trade in focus during a week set to be shaped by earnings from chip bellwether Nvidia and the US Federal Reserve’s annual gathering, while oil fell.
MSCI’s Asia Pacific equities gauge slipped 0.2 per cent, with tech shares leading the losses.
The Kospi Index – a bellwether for AI investments – fell 1.4 per cent, with Samsung Electronics slumping over 6 per cent after announcing plans to return as much as 110 trillion won (US$80 billion) to investors in 2026.
Equity-index futures for US stocks declined in early Asian trading on Monday (Aug 24).
Among the main market moves, S&P 500 futures were little changed as at 9.43 am Tokyo time.
The Hang Seng futures fell 0.5 per cent, Nikkei 225 futures (OSE) fell 0.4 per cent, Japan’s Topix was little changed and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.2 per cent.
Alibaba Group’s HK$80 billion (US$10.2 billion) share sale to compete for global leadership in AI and SoftBank Group’s plans for a record 1 trillion yen (US$6.3 billion) retail bond offering in Japan kept attention on the tech sector. Nvidia also notified customers about price hikes.
Elsewhere, Brent fell 1.5 per cent to US$93 a barrel ahead of US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s press conference detailing a plan to economically isolate Iran.
Treasuries advanced across the curve, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year falling two basis points to 4.71 per cent. Government bonds in Australia and New Zealand also advanced.
SEE ALSO
It is a crucial week for markets, with investors looking to Fed chair Kevin Warsh’s comments at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for clues on the path for interest rates as elevated oil prices stoke inflation pressures and bond yields soar to multi-decade highs.
Traders are also bracing for Nvidia’s earnings and guidance to gauge whether 2026’s rally in AI shares has further to run.
Early attention in Asia is on Alibaba. The online retail giant-turned-AI player said on Sunday it is offering 710 million shares at HK$112.7 each.
That represents a discount of 3.6 per cent to the closing price of Alibaba’s American depositary receipts on Friday.
Meanwhile, Nvidia’s price hikes will go into effect on systems shipped early 2027 and will impact systems including those with the flagship Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell chips, according to people familiar with the process.
The increases will depend on the generation of Nvidia chips and the memory configurations, they said.
The developments add to already brewing concerns over the sustainability of the AI spending boom, with soaring hardware costs threatening returns just as companies commit ever-larger sums to the technology.
In other corners of the market, the Canadian dollar weakened following the sudden collapse of trade talks with the US late on Friday that saw Washington place a 50 per cent duty on about US$20 billion worth of Canadian goods.
Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will apply counter-tariffs on US$20 billion of US products on Sep 8 in response.
Gold held its gains from last week, trading around US$4,605 an ounce. Attention is also on Bessent on Monday and his economic isolation plans for Iran.
“At dawn begins an economic D-Day – the single greatest financial offensive ever marshalled against an adversary,” Bessent wrote in a *Financial Times *article.
Traders are also watching Bessent’s fiscal consolidation plans after last week’s announcement of increased buybacks of long-term bonds whipsawed the Treasury market.
While Bessent has attempted to ease concerns over US fiscal policy, the Congressional Budget Office offers little evidence of fiscal consolidation, projecting large budget deficits and debt rising to a record 120 per cent of gross domestic product in 10 years, Elias Haddad, global head of markets strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, wrote in a note to clients. “Without credible spending cuts or revenue increases, the White House plan risks being little more than putting lipstick on a pig,” Haddad wrote. BLOOMBERG
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