Asian Stocks Rebound as Tokyo and Taipei Lead and Nvidia Faces Its First Test After the Huang Inquiry
Chip names did the lifting in Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei after a punishing Friday, while Hong Kong and Shanghai edged up and Sydney slipped. Wall Street opens with Nvidia under an independent inquiry.
Monday, November 9, 2026/2 min read
Asia opened the week the way a patient sits up after a bad night: shakily, but upright. After Friday's sell-off that sent Tokyo and Seoul down by more than 5 percent, chip stocks led a rebound on Monday, and Nvidia, the company at the centre of the AI trade, begins its day in the United States with its chief executive under an independent board inquiry.
Early Monday, the Nikkei 225 was up 3.4 percent at 59,411.34 and Seoul's Kospi up 1.5 percent at 5,137.22, the Associated Press reported. Those are early-session readings and they moved as the day went on. The Friday damage was larger: the AP put the Kospi's fall at 7.4 percent and the Nikkei's at 5.7 percent, which our Friday report on the Kospi circuit breaker covered as it happened.
Which Asian stocks led the rebound on Monday?
The gains were concentrated where the losses had been. Taiwan's Taiex rose about 5.6 percent as TSMC climbed the same amount, according to the AP. In Tokyo, Tokyo Electron gained 6.5 percent and Advantest 5.1 percent, while SoftBank Group fell 2.9 percent. In Seoul, SK Hynix rose 3.9 percent and Samsung Electronics 2.7 percent.
Elsewhere the mood was milder. The Hang Seng was up 0.2 percent at 24,525.58 and the Shanghai Composite up 0.4 percent at 3,663.91, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.1 percent to 9,011.50. InvestingLive noted that Goldman's basket of AI memory stocks is still down 51 percent from its June peak, a reminder that one good Monday repairs little.
What is going on with Nvidia and Jensen Huang?
Nvidia's board said on Sunday that it had opened an independent investigation after reports that Jensen Huang was the target of a foreign intelligence effort. Huang told staff he had a relationship with Alice Huang, a Megaspeed executive whom US intelligence agencies suspect of passing information to Beijing, according to reports in The New York Times and the Financial Times, CNBC reported. The board said it has no reason to believe national security or Nvidia secrets were compromised, and Huang remains chief executive. The espionage claim rests on those two reports, and no agency has publicly confirmed it.
Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said the scrutiny "reaches far beyond a personal scandal." Asian investors mostly looked past it for now. Nvidia rose 2.8 percent on Friday after falling 9.3 percent and 3.2 percent in the two sessions before, the AP said, and it reports third-quarter earnings on 17 November.
What are markets watching next?
The bigger driver is the rate path. A stronger-than-expected US jobs report has pushed the market-implied chance of a December Federal Reserve hike to roughly 80 percent, and October consumer prices arrive on Tuesday. Al Jazeera ties the AI sell-off to fears that Democratic control of Congress could slow data-centre building, after a US wipe-out of about $2.5 trillion on Thursday. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 futures were each up about 0.6 percent in Asian hours.
Brent was near $98 and the yen at 158.31 to the dollar. If Nvidia holds its footing at the New York open and Tuesday's inflation number is not hot, Monday's bounce has a chance of becoming a base. If either fails, Asia will be the first to say so.
Published in The Outspoken Digest
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