Stocks Tumble in Asia as Tech Investors Pull Back

Share prices of big technology companies declined in Asia on Wednesday, dragging broader markets lower, after Nvidia, the American chip giant, revealed that the U.S. government would restrict sales of some of its chips to China.

They are the first major limits that President Trump’s administration has put on semiconductor sales abroad. Nvidia dominates the market for chips used in building artificial intelligence systems and will now require a license sell A.I. chips to China. It raises the possibility that the company’s sales to China will evaporate in the coming months, bringing an end to a business that has contracted as the United States has curbed chip exports to its geopolitical rival.

In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, Nvidia said it will take a $5.5 billion hit because of piles of chips it will not be able to sell or orders it won’t be able to fill.

Nvidia’s stock was down about 6 percent in after-hours trading.

Stock market benchmarks in Japan fell 1 percent on Wednesday. Share prices were down 2.5 percent in Hong Kong and 2 percent in Taiwan, a hub of global chip manufacturing. The maker of most of the world’s advanced chips, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, which gets a lot of business from Nvidia, dropped 2.5 percent.

In the United States, S&P 500 futures, which let investors bet on how the index might perform when trading begins in New York, were down more than 1 percent.

On Tuesday, the S&P 500 dipped 0.2 percent, and the technology-heavy Nasdaq also posted a slight loss. Positive quarterly results in the banking sector and signs that the United States was making progress on a trade deal with Britain helped stabilize stocks on Tuesday.

President Trump’s whipsawing tariff policies are still driving sentiment in global markets, especially in sectors facing the threat of more levies or potential reprieves.

A survey by Bank of America showed that global investors have cut their U.S. stock holdings by a record amount in the past two months, and that the potential for a recession spurred by Mr. Trump’s trade war poses a major risk to markets.

Tripp Mickle contributed reporting.