Asia shares retreat from record as Apple price hikes rain on chip parade

SYDNEY, June 26 : Asian shares pulled back on Friday after a stellar 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.

Oil prices fell toward their lowest in fourth months, with Brent crude futures down 1.5 per cent to $74.1 a barrel, as Saudi Aramco resumed oil loading at its Ras Tanura terminal after a halt of almost four months. More stranded oil tankers have crossed the Strait of Hormuz with the help of military escorts, although a cargo ship was hit by a projectile.

Nasdaq futures tumbled 1.3 per cent in Asia, as investor sentiment soured after a media report that OpenAI is considering holding off on its public debut until next year. European bourses were bracing for a lower open, with pan-region stock futures off 0.8 per cent.

Shares of Apple slid 6.1 per cent overnight after the tech giant announced steep price increases for iPads and MacBooks to counter the surging cost of memory and storage chips. That wiped about $250 billion off of 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 surged almost 16 per cent overnight to a record high.

Apple's price increases were a reflection of how "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."

Analysts also said 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 fell 3 per cent, bringing its weekly loss to 4.4 per cent, as investors took profits from a 23 per cent quarterly gain, the best since 2009. It was down 2.8 per cent for the month.

Japan's Nikkei slumped 4.2 per cent and was headed for a weekly drop of 2.7 per cent%. It has climbed 4.5 per cent for the month and surged 35 per cent for the quarter, the biggest quarterly gain in its history.

South Korea's KOSPI was last down 5.8 per cent, after slumping as far as 8 per cent earlier to triggering a circuit breaker. It was down 7 per cent for the week, but still managed a monstrous 66 per cent gain for the quarter, the best since 1998.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 1.7 per cent, but it was down 8.5 per cent for the quarter, marking the third straight quarter of declines to be an outlier in the region.

YEN WEAK

In the currency markets, the yen teetered near its weakest level against the dollar in 40 years at 161.60, well beyond the 160 level that many see as a line in the sand for Japanese authorities.

It found little relief even as a U.S. inflation reading met forecasts and traders trimmed bets for a rate hike from the Federal Reserve in September.

Separate data also showed the U.S. economy grew faster than previously estimated in the first quarter thanks to a downward revision to imports, but consumer spending almost stalled, casting doubt on growth momentum in the second quarter.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback's strength against a basket of six major peers, slipped 0.1 per cent to 101.36, but remained not far from its strongest level since May 2025. It has risen 0.6 per cent this week.

Treasury yields slipped on Friday. 2-year yields fell 2 basis points at 4.0942 per cent to mark a fourth day of declines, while ten-year yields eased 1 bps at 4.3804 per cent, having hit a nearly two-month low of 4.3627 per cent in the previous session.

Precious metals have had a rough month, with spot gold down 11.5 per cent to $4,011 an ounce and spot silver sliding 24.5 per cent to $56.7 an ounce.