PRE-MARKET JAPANESE STOCKS NEWS: SoftBank (9984 JT) CEO Son said even he is concerned about AI safety risks as machines rapidly gain more capabilities; South Korean markets are closed for holiday

Newsquawk StaffPublished 4 Oct 2026, 23:44 UTC

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23:24

PRE-MARKET JAPANESE STOCKS NEWS: SoftBank (9984 JT) CEO Son said even he is concerned about AI safety risks as machines rapidly gain more capabilities; South Korean markets are closed for holiday

23:09

Asian gold producers reportedly began hoarding supplies following recent increases in prices and are stepping up efforts to capture more of the value from gold boom through increased refining or discouraging exports through taxes or central bank purchases

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Honda Motor (7267 JT) - Hyundai Motor (005380 KS) overtook the Co. for the first time in US hybrid vehicle sales during H1. (Nikkei)

Kawasaki Heavy Industries (7012 JT) - Co. plans to launch a fully autonomous humanoid AI robot as soon as 2030, using a physical AI platform under development in Japan. (Nikkei)

Nippon Paint Holdings (4612 JT) - Co. is to acquire AkzoNobel's Southeast Asia decorative paints business for USD 1.35bln. (FT)

SoftBank Group (9984 JT) - Co. CEO Masayoshi Son said even he is concerned about AI safety risks as machines rapidly gain more capabilities. (Newswires)

Sumitomo Corp. (8053 JT) - Co. plans to invest JPY 50bln in India. (Newswires)

Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings (9501 JT) - Co. is among Japanese utilities tightening electricity supply rules for data centres to curb capacity squatting. (Nikkei)

Insurers

Nippon Life Insurance is set to benefit from US affiliate Corebridge Financial's merger with Equitable Holdings through expanded product development and asset management opportunities. (Nikkei)

Japan's Financial Services Agency is preparing to issue a business suspension order against Prudential Life Insurance following widespread customer fund misappropriation cases. (Nikkei)

Tech

Rapidus will partner with 17 companies, including Toshiba, to help clients design advanced semiconductors and expand its potential chip fabrication customer base. (Nikkei)

Defence

Japan plans to develop a lower-cost, long-range cruise missile using civilian components that can be deployed in large numbers to overwhelm air defences. (Nikkei)

Other News

Japanese Finance Minister Katayama said the FX trend has changed somewhat since the joint FX intervention was announced, while she added that US Treasury Secretary Bessent has questioned whether the Japanese government has been sending a unified message to markets. (Newswires)

Context

Pre-market wraps of this kind are tape-setting rather than tape-moving: a basket of single-name stories, none individually large enough to set the index direction, landing into a session thinned by the Korean holiday. The items with the cleanest transmission channels are the Nippon Paint acquisition, which is a defined cash consideration against AkzoNobel's Southeast Asia decorative paints book, and the FSA's preparation of a suspension order against Prudential Life, where business suspension orders have historically been among the harsher administrative sanctions available to the Japanese regulator and have tended to precede prolonged remediation rather than quick resolution. The TEPCO item on utilities tightening supply rules for data centres is a recurring theme across markets with constrained grids: capacity squatting rules reallocate, rather than create, power headroom, and the read-through runs to the data centre development names rather than the utility itself. Son's AI-safety remarks are commentary rather than positioning, though SoftBank's sensitivity to AI-linked sentiment means offhand language from him has on occasion moved the stock around headline-only flows. The FX comment from the Finance Minister, referencing the joint intervention announcement, is the macro item in the wrap; verbal follow-through of this kind has historically mattered mainly as a test of whether official rhetoric escalates or fades. Korea's closure removes a regional liquidity leg and tends to leave regional price discovery thinner.

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