Asian shares retreat from record high

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan declined 3.8%, ‌bringing its weekly ⁠loss to 5.4%, as investors took profits from a record run

Asian shares retreated on Friday after ​a strong quarter, as Apple’s hefty price hikes revealed the downside of booming chip demand, while the threat of Japanese intervention kept the ‌yen from hitting 40-year lows.

Shares of Apple slipped 6.1% overnight ⁠after the tech company announced price increases for iPads and MacBooks to counter the surging cost of memory and storage chips. That wiped around $250 billion from ​its market value. Microsoft is raising prices for its Xbox gaming consoles by up to $150 worldwide.

The price increases tempered investor enthusiasm about a blowout earnings report from chipmaker Micron ​this week, whose shares soared nearly 16% overnight to a record high.

Apple’s price increases were a reflection of how the big tech may at some point start to feel the pain of these higher component costs, and that can become a broader ecosystem headwind, said Charu Chanana, chief investment strategist at Saxo.

That is why markets are becoming more cautious. Higher input costs, ​heavier capex needs and rising funding demands are making investors more selective about AI exposure, she said.

Analysts also say that month-end and quarter-end rebalancing flows might have contributed ​to the weakness and choppy prices in big tech companies, which have outperformed for much of the second quarter.

On Friday, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan declined 3.8%, ‌bringing its weekly ⁠loss to 5.4%, as investors took profits from a record run. While it was down 3.7% for the month, the index was up 21% for the quarter.

Nikkei plunged 5% and was headed for a weekly decline of 3.6%. It has jumped 3.5% for the month and soared 34% for the quarter.

KOSPI tumbled 8.2%, triggering a circuit breaker that halted trading for 20 minutes. It was down 9.4% for the week, but still managed a 62% gain for ​the quarter.

Chinese blue-chips dropped 2.9% and Hang Seng index shed 2.4%.