Europe Asia News

SoftBank Group shares fell as much as 10% on Wednesday after the company said it had sold its entire stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion.

SoftBank said it sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October and, by trimming its T-Mobile position, raised a total of $9.17 billion.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.26% while the Topix rose 0.35%. South Korea’s Kospi was little changed, with the small-cap Kosdaq up 0.62%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.13%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.25%, while mainland China’s CSI 300 was flat.

On Tuesday the Japanese conglomerate said it had sold all its Nvidia shares for $5.83 billion to capitalize on its investment in ChatGPT maker OpenAI; investors are expected to watch SoftBank and Asia tech stocks closely.

In the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average notched a new closing record on Tuesday, while the Nasdaq Composite struggled as investors rotated out of tech into other, lower-valued parts of the market.

The 30-stock Dow rose 559.33 points, or 1.18%, to finish at 47,927.96. On Wall Street, investors bought shares of various blue-chips such as Merck, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson. The S&P 500 also added 0.21% to 6,846.61, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 0.25% to 23,468.30.