Global Market Today: Asian stocks dip with AI in focus, oil declines

Asian stocks edged lower, with the artificial intelligence theme in early focus during a week set to be shaped by earnings from chip bellwether Nvidia Corp. and the Federal Reserve’s annual gathering.

MSCI’s Asia Pacific equities gauge dipped 0.1%, with the Kospi Index in South Korea — a bellwether for AI investments — falling 1.2%. However, US equity-index futures erased earlier losses to edged up, with contracts for the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 climbing 0.1%.

The moves came as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. sought to raise about HK$80 billion ($10.2 billion) from a share sale to compete for global leadership in AI, while Nvidia customers were notified about price hikes.


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Elsewhere, Brent fell 1% to $93.45 a barrel ahead of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s press conference detailing a plan to economically isolate Iran. Oil has surged more than 50% this year as the US-Iran war, now in its sixth month, choked global crude supplies, with no resolution in sight over reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

It’s 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 this year’s rally in artificial intelligence shares has further to run.

Early attention in Asia will be on Alibaba. The online retail giant-turned-AI player said Sunday it’s offering 710 million shares at HK$112.7 each. That represents a discount of 3.6% 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 next year and will impact systems including those with the flagship Vera Rubin and Grace Blackwell chips, according to people familiar with the process, who asked to not to be identified commenting on communications that haven’t yet been made public. 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 Friday that saw Washington place a 50% duty on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods. Prime Minister Mark Carney said Canada will apply counter-tariffs on $20 billion of US products on Sept. 8. in response.

Gold extended its gains from last week, trading around $4,630 an ounce.

Attention is also on Bessent Monday and his plans for fiscal consolidation after announcing plans to boost buyback of long-term US bonds, which whipsawed Treasuries.

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% of GDP 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.