Stocks across Asia tumbled overnight as a brutal sell-off in gold and silver rippled through global markets, dragging equities lower and denting risk appetite.
European markets, including the FTSE 100, were on track to open sharply lower, with turmoil in precious metals compounding concerns that a long-running rally in artificial intelligence stocks may be losing momentum.
Gold slid more than 6% to around $4,530 an ounce, less than a week after hitting a record high near $5,600. Silver suffered an even steeper fall, plunging 12% to below $75 an ounce after briefly topping $120 for the first time last week. Oil prices also weakened, down more than 5%.
The rout accelerated late last week after US President Donald Trump nominated Kevin Warsh as the next chairman of the Federal Reserve, unsettling markets and raising fresh questions about the future path of interest rates.
Tim Waterer, chief market analyst at KCM Trade, said traders remained “unnerved by the market tumult witnessed on Friday in precious metals”.
In Asia, trading was briefly halted on South Korea’s benchmark Kospi, which plunged more than 5%. Heavyweights SK Hynix and Samsung Electronics slid more than 8% and 5% respectively.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell over 1%, while Taiwan’s stock market dropped more than 2%, weighed down by losses in chipmaker TSMC.
The weakness followed declines on Wall Street on Friday, driven in part by renewed selling pressure in Microsoft. The tech giant recently flagged a sharp increase in spending on AI infrastructure, reviving concerns that returns on those investments may take longer to materialise.
Microsoft shares resumed their slide on Friday after plunging more than 10% on Thursday, wiping around $357 billion (£260 billion) off its market value in what ranked as the second-largest single-day loss in stock market history.
