TradingKey - On September 29, Japanese and South Korean stock markets showed weak performance in early trading. Japan's Nikkei 225 Index (JPN225) opened down 0.49% at 65,557.99 points, before narrowing its decline to 0.37% at 65,636.03 points; South Korea's KOSPI Index opened 0.7% lower at 6,844.41 points, before narrowing its loss to 0.25% at 6,872.71 points.

Source: TradingView

South Korean tech heavyweights performed relatively resiliently in early trading, with SK Hynix rising 0.42% in early trading to 1.776 million won (approximately $1,306); Samsung Electronics rose 0.28% to 271,000 won. In the Japanese market, SoftBank Group fell 0.51% in early trading to 6,212 yen (approximately $40); Kioxia fell 1.80% to 17,460 yen.

The cautious sentiment in Japanese and South Korean markets was mainly influenced by overnight weakness in U.S. stocks. The three major U.S. stock indices closed lower across the board, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling 0.67%, the S&P 500 Index dropping 0.77%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index declining 0.92%.

Tech stocks experienced more pronounced pullbacks, with optical communications and memory chip sectors leading the decline. Arm (ARM) fell over 8%, Qualcomm (QCOM) fell over 7%, Intel (INTC) and SK Hynix (SKHY) both dropped over 5%; Meta and Coherent (COHR) fell over 4%, while SanDisk (SNDK), AMD (AMD), and Marvell Technology (MRVL) fell over 3%.

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