SoftBank Shares Plunge Over 8%, Extending Selloff for Third Consecutive Day

SoftBank Group’s shares plunged more than 8% on Friday, marking the third straight day of heavy selling after the Japanese tech conglomerate revealed it had sold its entire stake in U.S. chipmaker Nvidia for $5.83 billion. The decline extended a steep two-week slide that has erased nearly $50 billion in SoftBank’s market value, its worst performance since March 2020.

The stock later pared some losses but was still down about 5% as of late evening trading in Tokyo. The selloff came after SoftBank disclosed in its quarterly earnings report that it sold 32.1 million Nvidia shares in October and trimmed its holdings in T-Mobile, raising roughly $9.17 billion in total. The move surprised investors, though this is not the first time SoftBank has exited Nvidia; its Vision Fund had previously held about $4 billion in Nvidia stock before fully divesting in 2019.

Despite the sale, SoftBank remains tied to Nvidia through ongoing artificial intelligence ventures, including the $500 billion Stargate data center project in the U.S., which relies heavily on Nvidia’s AI technology. However, investor sentiment has turned cautious as worries mount about the sustainability of the global AI rally.

The broader Asian tech sector also suffered losses. Japan’s Advantest and Tokyo Electron fell more than 3% and 4% respectively, while Taiwan’s TSMC dropped 2%. In South Korea, SK Hynix plunged over 5%, and Samsung Electronics shed nearly 4%. Chinese tech giants were not spared either, with Tencent sliding 5.6% and JD.com falling 4.3%.

Overnight in the United States, major technology firms also faced steep declines. Nvidia dropped 3.6%, Broadcom fell 4.3%, and Alphabet, the parent company of Google, slipped 2.8%, reflecting global investor concern over a potential cooldown in AI-related trades.

SoftBank’s recent stock plunge highlights growing unease among investors about the company’s exposure to volatile tech markets and its heavy reliance on high-risk AI investments amid uncertain global conditions.