Gold extends gains, breaking past $5,000; Asia stocks trade mostly higher, breaking ranks with Wall Street

Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Wednesday, breaking ranks with Wall Street after a sell-off in U.S. technology stocks weighed on sentiment, while gold extended gains for a second day.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 declined 0.78% to close at 54,293.36, dragged by tech stocks. The Topix added 0.27% to 3,655.58.

Australia’sS&P/ASX 200 reversed course and rose 0.8% to 8,927.8.

South Korea’s Kospi advanced 1.57% to 5,371.1, while the small-cap Kosdaq added 0.45% to 1,149.43.

Nintendo shares dropped more than 10%, despite maintaining its full-year sales forecast for the Switch 2 console, as investors assessed several potential headwinds for the gaming giant, including the risk of an unprecedented surge in memory prices — a key component of its consoles.

Hong Kong Hang Seng index was flat at 26,847.32, while the mainland CSI 300 rose 0.83% to 4,698.68.

Wall Street’s fears of artificial intelligence-driven disruption affecting software companies also spread to Asia, with tech stocks in the region tracking overnight declines in U.S. peers.

Japanese software firms in Asia led the region’s declines.TIS, a major Japanese information technology services provider and systems integrator, plunged by more than 15%.Trend Micro and NS Solutionseach lost over 7%.

Spot gold prices added more than 2% to $5,060.72 per ounce, while spot silver added nearly 5% to $89.37 per ounce.

Overnight in the U.S., theS&P 500pulled back as investors dumped technology stocks and moved into shares more broadly linked to improvements in the economy.

The broad market index fell 0.84% and closed at 6,917.81. TheDow Jones Industrial Averagedipped 166.67 points, or 0.34%, to end at 49,240.99. Earlier, the 30-stock index rose as much as 0.5% to touch 49,653.13, a new record. TheNasdaq Compositeshed 1.43%, settling at 23,255.19.

Most tech shares closed in the red, including most of the “Magnificent Seven” names that have reported earnings so far —MicrosoftandMeta Platformsfell more than 2%, whileAppleended marginally lower.Nvidiaalso slumped, with the artificial intelligence bellwether’s nearly 3% drop adding to its losses for the year. Meanwhile, software stocks continued their 2026 tumble, with shares of ServiceNow andSalesforcefalling by nearly 7% each.

— CNBC’s Arjun Kharpal, Sean Conlon and Pia Singh contributed to this report.