LONDON, November 9, 2026 — The global stocks rebound gathered pace on Monday as investors bought back some technology shares after last week’s sharp sell-off, but the recovery remained uneven. Taiwan’s Taiex jumped 4.9% and Japan’s Nikkei closed 2.3% higher, while South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.8%. European shares and US equity futures advanced modestly, even as Nvidia dropped more than 4% in premarket trading after news of an independent board investigation involving chief executive Jensen Huang.
The rebound has eased some of the pressure on the AI trade, but it has not resolved the questions that triggered the sell-off: whether the enormous investment in data centres will produce returns quickly enough, whether political opposition will delay new projects and whether valuations have moved too far ahead of earnings. Monday’s gains show that investors are willing to buy after a steep decline. They do not yet show that the market has settled on a durable view of the sector.
Global stocks rebound after a difficult week for technology shares
Asian trading provided the clearest evidence of a recovery. The Taiex rose 4.9%, helped by a rebound in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and other chip-related shares, according to the Associated Press. Tokyo’s Nikkei gained 2.3%. The Kospi in Seoul moved in the opposite direction, losing 0.8%, while Shanghai posted a small gain and Hong Kong edged lower. Australia’s benchmark also advanced slightly.
The regional performance was not uniform because investors were reassessing different risks in each market. Taiwan and Japan had been among the hardest hit during the previous week’s technology rout, leaving chipmakers and equipment suppliers vulnerable to sharp swings when investors changed their positions. South Korean shares, which also have substantial exposure to semiconductor manufacturing, failed to sustain an early recovery. The divergence suggests that investors were not simply buying every technology stock indiscriminately.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 was up about 0.6% and its technology sector gained roughly 0.9%, the Financial Times reported. US stock futures were also positive. Reuters reported early gains of about 0.7% for Dow futures, 0.4% for S&P 500 futures and 0.2% for Nasdaq futures. Those figures describe futures trading rather than a completed US market session; the cash market had not yet opened when the figures were reported.
The move followed a bruising week. The S&P 500 lost 2.7% over the week, its worst weekly performance since April 2025, according to the Associated Press. Thursday’s fall was especially severe for technology shares, with the Nasdaq dropping 5.5% and the S&P 500 losing more than 4% in the session, according to Guardian market coverage. Friday brought a partial recovery, but it was not enough to erase the earlier losses.
That sequence matters for investors because a market can rebound sharply after forced selling without the underlying concerns disappearing. Funds that had reduced exposure to crowded technology trades may be rebuilding positions, while short-term traders are responding to lower prices. Long-term investors still need evidence that AI spending will translate into revenue, margins and cash flow rather than simply larger capital budgets.
AI data-centre spending remains the central market question
One source of anxiety is the political debate over the cost of building AI infrastructure. The Associated Press reported that investors had been concerned that Democratic victories in the US midterm elections could make data-centre projects harder to approve, particularly where new facilities require large amounts of electricity, water and grid capacity. Public opposition has grown in communities where residents fear that power demand from data centres could raise household bills or compete with other users.
The election result does not automatically stop data-centre construction. Projects are shaped by state and local permitting, utility contracts, power availability, financing and agreements with technology companies. A more critical political environment could add delays, costs or disclosure requirements, but it would not necessarily end the demand for computing capacity. Analysts cited by the Financial Times argued that the long-term build-out is likely to continue, even if investors become more selective about which companies and projects deserve premium valuations.
That distinction has become increasingly important as spending by major technology companies has accelerated. Chipmakers, cloud providers, data-centre operators and power suppliers have all benefited from expectations that demand for AI computing will keep rising. The market is now asking which businesses can convert that demand into durable profits, how much debt will be needed to finance the infrastructure and whether customers will pay enough for computing services to justify the cost of new facilities.
Upcoming results from companies including CoreWeave, Applied Materials and Cisco will give investors more information about orders, capital expenditure and demand across the AI supply chain. Their results will not settle the question for the whole industry, but they may show whether spending is spreading beyond a handful of the largest technology companies or becoming concentrated among a smaller group of buyers and suppliers.
Nvidia remained a weak point on Monday. Reuters and the Associated Press reported that its shares fell more than 4% in premarket trading after the board opened an independent investigation into reports involving Huang and a possible foreign intelligence operation. Nvidia’s board said it had no reason to believe company secrets or US national security had been compromised. The inquiry is not a finding that espionage occurred, but the news added a company-specific risk at a time when the semiconductor sector was trying to recover.
Also read: NVIDIA Board Opens Independent Probe After Reports CEO Was Target of Foreign Intelligence Effort
Also read: Global Markets Slide as AI Stocks Weaken and Oil Rebounds Ahead of US Midterms
Oil, interest rates and India’s relative strength
Oil prices moved lower as traders reassessed the risk of another escalation in the Middle East. Reuters reported that Brent crude fell about 2% to $96.29 a barrel after US President Donald Trump said new attacks on Iran were unlikely if peace talks continued to make progress. The price move reduces one source of immediate inflation pressure, but crude remains expensive enough to matter for fuel-importing economies and companies with high transport costs.
Interest-rate expectations remain another influence. A stronger US employment report has supported the view that the American economy is still resilient, but it has also increased concern that inflation could remain sticky. Reuters reported that market pricing had lifted the probability of a Federal Reserve rate increase in December to about 80%. That estimate can change quickly as new inflation and employment data arrive; it is a market-implied probability, not a decision announced by the Federal Reserve.
For India, lower oil prices and a rotation away from crowded technology trades have helped improve the market outlook. Reuters reported that Citi raised its end-2027 Nifty 50 target to 28,000, implying about 12% upside from its reference level, and that HSBC upgraded Indian equities to “overweight”. The Nifty had risen more than 10% in seven sessions, while foreign investors bought over $4.1 billion of Indian shares during the month, the strongest inflows in more than two years, according to the report.
Citi’s case for India includes the potential benefit of cheaper oil. The bank estimated that a $10-per-barrel decline could reduce the current-account deficit by 30 to 40 basis points, lower inflation by about 50 basis points and lift Nifty earnings per share by roughly 2%. Those are scenario estimates, not guaranteed outcomes. A sustained fall in oil prices would help the external balance and corporate costs, but the effect would depend on the rupee, domestic demand and the length of the decline.
The India upgrade also reflects a wider search for diversification. Investors concerned about concentrated exposure to a small group of US technology companies may look towards banks, industrials, consumer businesses and markets with different earnings drivers. India is not insulated from global volatility: foreign flows can reverse, valuations can become expensive and a rise in oil prices would quickly change the outlook. But the current shift shows that investors are considering markets beyond the largest AI-linked stocks.
The next tests are likely to come from US inflation data, further technology-company earnings and any change in the outlook for Federal Reserve policy. Investors will also watch whether the rebound broadens beyond semiconductor shares and whether companies can demonstrate that AI-related spending is producing measurable returns. If gains remain concentrated in a few names, the recovery may prove fragile. If earnings and orders improve across the supply chain, the market could have a stronger basis for stabilising.
Monday’s advance is therefore a pause in a volatile repricing, not proof that the AI trade has returned to its previous trajectory. Taiwan and Japan recovered sharply, European shares rose and US futures pointed higher, but Nvidia’s decline and the uneven performance of regional markets show that investors are still separating potential winners from companies exposed to financing, regulatory and execution risks. The direction of the next move will depend less on one day’s rebound than on the evidence delivered by earnings, policy and the cost of building the infrastructure behind AI.
SOURCE
Associated Press; Reuters; Financial Times; The Guardian.
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