World Shares Mixed as Japan and South Korea Fall Sharply While Australia Rises

World shares retreated Friday, led by heavy losses in Japan and South Korea as traders sold to lock in gains from recent rallies in stocks related to artificial intelligence. In Asia, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index shed 4.2 percent to 69,360.88 and the Kospi in Seoul plunged 5.8 percent to 8,411.21.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.8 percent to 22,667.13, while the Shanghai Composite index slipped 2.3 percent to 4,027.26.

Taiwan’s Taiex gave up 3.6 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was an outlier, gaining 0.2 percent to 8,764.20. In early European trading, Germany’s DAX gave up 0.8 percent to 24,793.58, while the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.4 percent to 8,398.14.

Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.4 percent to 10,490.62. The future for the S&P 500 lost 0.2 percent while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.2 percent higher. On Thursday the S&P 500 finished nearly unchanged with a dip of less than 0.1 percent.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 71 points, or 0.1 percent, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.5 percent. Micron Technology shares jumped 15.7 percent after the company reported much bigger profit and revenue for its latest quarter than analysts expected and gave a stronger growth forecast for the current quarter than Wall Street expected. Apple shares dropped 6.1 percent.

In South Korea, market trends have been dominated by movements in stock in Samsung Electronics, the country’s biggest company, and chipmaker SK Hynix, which like Samsung is collaborating with Nvidia on artificial intelligence. Samsung’s shares lost 5.3 percent on Friday, while those of SK Hynix fell 8.4 percent. In Tokyo trading, technology giant SoftBank Group Corp.

Lost 12.5 percent and computer chip testing equipment maker Advantest sank 3.2 percent. A report released Thursday showed U.S. inflation climbing to 4.1 percent last month from 3.8 percent in April. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil declined 2.3 percent to $73.77 per barrel early Friday.