HONG KONG, Oct 9 — Asian stocks headed into the weekend on a mixed note on Friday with tech weighed by renewed concerns about the AI investment boom, while support came from a drop in oil prices after Donald Trump ruled out a pre-election strike on Iran.

The outlook for artificial intelligence has provided a fresh boost to the tech sector in recent weeks, with some optimism for the upcoming earnings season. Chip titan Nvidia this week hit a record high and closed in on the US$6 trillion (RM24.5 trillion) market capitalisation.

That was dealt a blow by a Financial Times report saying OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, expected to make US$50 billion in annualised revenue this year, far less than the US$70 billion flagged previously.

“For most of this boom, the market has been happy to follow the money going in. Bigger data centres, more GPUs, more memory, more power, more debt, more capex,” wrote Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.

“Every fresh spending commitment became another brick in the bullish wall because the assumption underneath it was simple enough: if the industry is prepared to spend this much, the demand will eventually justify it.

“Then OpenAI handed the market a number that made traders look at the other side of the ledger.”

Wall Street’s Nasdaq ended more than one per cent lower, with Nvidia down nearly three per cent, while Microsoft, AMD and Amazon among others sharply lower.

However, Chris Weston at Pepperstone added that “the discrepancy may reflect differences in revenue measurement rather than an outright deterioration in OpenAI’s underlying business”.

Still, he said, “in a market where valuations are increasingly dependent on ambitious revenue and cash flow projections, the headlines have been enough to trigger a meaningful one-day repositioning”.

In Asia, Tokyo sank with tech investing titan SoftBank losing more than four per cent, while Kioxia and Advantest were also well down.

Shanghai and Singapore were also down, though Hong Kong, Sydney, Wellington, Manila and Jakarta were all up.

Seoul and Taipei – both heavily weighted with tech firms – were closed for holidays.

Traders took a little heart from a dip in oil prices after US President Donald Trump ruled out hitting Iran before the midterm elections, saying Washington was holding “productive discussions” with Tehran.

His remarks came after reports said the White House had asked the Pentagon to draw up plans for a possible attack ahead of the November 3 vote, hoping a show of strength might help struggling Republicans’ chances.

Both main contracts were down around 0.7 per cent Friday, though that is after they fell as much as four per cent on concerns about increased Iranian strikes in the Strait of Hormuz.

That comes on top of Yemen’s Houthis taking aim at Riyadh airport with missiles and warning staff at oil facilities in Saudi Arabia to leave to avoid being targeted as hostilities escalate.

Comments from Fed officials cemented expectations for another interest rate hike before the end of the year, though this month appears unlikely.

Governor Christopher Waller said more tightening was likely necessary to bring prices under control, while St. Louis Fed boss Alberto Musalem eyed increases over the next six to nine months.

Still, National Australia Bank’s Ken Crompton said: “Whilst this is a touch hawkish relative to his (Waller’s) recent record, he’s still in close accord with (Vice Chair Philip) Jefferson and (New York Fed chief John) Williams last week, who collectively (in addition to the inflation data) helped cool market pricing of an October hike from 15 basis points to less than five basis points.” — AFP