SoftBank shares drop 7.2%, drag Japanese tech stocks

SoftBank Group shares fell as much as 7.2% on December 18, leading declines among Japanese tech stocks as concerns over AI spending in the US spread to Asia.

The Nikkei 225 dropped 1.2%, with other Japanese tech firms also seeing losses, including Advantest down up to 5%, and Lasertec, Renesas Electronics, and Tokyo Electron slipping 3%–4%.

The declines followed a 1.8% drop in the Nasdaq Composite overnight, driven by losses in major AI and tech stocks including Oracle, Broadcom, and Nvidia.

🔗 Source: CNBC

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Hyperscaler capex is still accelerating despite financing headline noise

Blue Owl and Oracle paused one data center financing, which is a single delay, not a broad funding freeze 1. Hyperscalers (the largest cloud providers such as Amazon, Microsoft, and Google) expect to spend over $380 billion in capex (capital expenditures) this year 1.
Microsoft said FY 2026 capex will speed up, and CNBC estimates at least $94 billion 1.
Cloud infrastructure sales keep rising 1. AWS rose 20 percent, Azure 40 percent, Google Cloud 34 percent to $15.15 billion 1.

Private credit and infrastructure investors can capture data center financing gaps left by banks

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