SoftBank Group shares surge 13% as Asian tech stocks track Wall Street rebound

Asian technology stocks surged Tuesday, tracking a rebound on Wall Street overnight as a sharp decline in oil prices lifted sentiment while renewed buying in chip names spilled over into Asia, following last week’s bruising sell-off.

Japan’s technology investment giant SoftBank Group surged 13.4%, while chip-testing equipment maker Advantest gained 2.36%. Semiconductor equipment maker Tokyo Electron rose over 4.73%, while Lasertec and Disco advanced 6.74% and 6.01%, respectively.

Stock performance so far this year

South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix jumped 5.2%, while Samsung Electronics rose 3.9%. Samsung SDI climbed 6.87%. Taiwan’s TSMC added 0.45%.

China’s tech-heavy ChiNext Price Index rose 1.4%.

The gains followed a strong session on Wall Street, where the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 2.74%, while the S&P 500 rose 2.35% to clock its best day since April 8.

The recovery came after a steep sell-off in global technology stocks last week, fueled by concerns that Democrats’ sweeping victory in the U.S. midterm elections could lead to tighter restrictions on data-center development, potentially impacting demand for artificial intelligence chips and infrastructure.

“This is not to suggest that the tech sell-off is done and dusted. While there is some evidence that investors are taking advantage of last week’s plunge to increase their exposure to chip and other AI-adjacent stocks, there’s a danger that it may be a little bit premature to load up and ‘buy the dip,'” said David Morrison, senior market analyst at Trade Nation.

Beyond the political uncertainty surrounding potential restrictions on data-center development, investors have also grown increasingly wary of the enormous capital expenditures required to build out AI infrastructure. Questions over how quickly those investments will translate into meaningful profits have weighed on sentiment toward companies across the semiconductor supply chain.