Asian shares mostly advance following US midterms, though Kospi falls on selling of chipmakers

Asian shares mostly gained on Thursday after U.S. stocks rallied following the midterm election, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumping more than 3% after President Donald Trump’s party lost its sole control of Washington.

The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil was trading near $94, around its lowest level in two months.

Selling of shares related to artificial intelligence extended losses. South Korea’s Kospi briefly sank more than 4% on heavy selling of computer chipmakers. By late morning, it was trading 3.5% lower at 5,484.38.

Shares in Samsung Electronics sank 5.7%, while memory chipmaker SK Hynix lost 7.4%.

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 fell 0.5% to 61,914.53. OpenAI investor SoftBank Group shed 5.3%, while computer chipmaking equipment company Tokyo Electron skidded 7.7% and testing equipment maker Advantest tumbled 9.4%.

Taiwan’s Taiex lost 1.6%.

U.S. stocks usually gain following midterms, regardless of who wins, and the S&P 500 jumped 1.6% on Wednesday. The Dow surged more than 1,500 points, and the Nasdaq composite rose 1.4%.

Asian markets less heavily exposed to the AI industry mostly climbed on Thursday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng jumped 2.8% to 24,597.59 and the Shanghai Composite index edged 0.1% higher.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 rose 1.9% to 9,003.40.

Wednesday on Wall Street, stocks of hospital owners and dollar stores serving low-income Americans helped lead the widespread rally following nationwide losses for Republicans.

Overall, the election may not matter much for the broad market in the long term. Prices for stocks depend more on where profits for companies and interest rates are heading than on who controls what in Washington. But investors generally prefer split control of Washington because it lessens the risk of transformative changes to the economy.

But investors see risks ahead for Trump’s social-media company, the artificial-intelligence industry and businesses owned by Elon Musk, who donated heavily to Republicans.

Trump Media & Technology Group was one of the market’s bigger losers Wednesday, down 24.5%.

Since briefly touching a peak of $175 five years ago, it’s dropped to $4.49. Its main business is Truth Social, which is most well known for Trump’s postings on the platform.

Elon Musk’s businesses also struggled. Tesla fell 3.3%, and SpaceX sank 3.8%. Musk, a former top Trump adviser, is among the possible targets for investigations by a Democratic-controlled Congress.

Given Trump’s role as a big backer of the AI industry, the setback for Republicans has added to worries over whether share prices boosted by the buildup of AI have flown too high.

A Democratic-led Congress could push Trump to pull back on the war with Iran, and that hurt stocks of companies that make weapons and other equipment for the U.S. military. Lockheed Martin sank 6.9%; Northrop Grumman fell 4.5% and General Dynamics lost 2.6%.

The possibility of pressure to pull back on the war also sent the price for a barrel of Brent crude oil, the international standard, plunging 8.7% to $94.62. That in turn hurt stocks of big oil companies, which had been rallying for much of the year. ExxonMobil fell 4.6%, and ConocoPhillips dropped 5.2%.

Early Thursday, Brent crude was down 0.8% to $93.91 per barrel, while U.S. benchmark crude fell 1% to $87.27 per barrel.

Falling oil prices usually hurt stocks of renewable-energy companies because they can lessen the incentive to switch to other energy sources. But Democratic control of Congress could light the way for companies in the solar and wind industries.

First Solar rose 4.6%, and Enphase Energy climbed 3.7%.

In other dealings early Thursday, the U.S. dollar slipped to 157.96 Japanese yen from 158.41 yen. The euro rose to $1.1256 from $1.1228.

___

AP Business Writers Dave McHugh in Frankfurt, Germany, and Stan Choe in New York contributed.