Asia-Pacific markets set to open mostly lower on penultimate day of the year

Group 1 - Nvidia shares dropped more than 1% on Monday, reversing some of the previous week's over 5% gain, alongside losses for Palantir Technologies, Meta Platforms, and Oracle [1] - SoftBank Group Corp's shares slipped over 2% after announcing a $4 billion acquisition of DigitalBridge to enhance its AI capabilities, although shares of DigitalBridge rose about 10% following the announcement [2][3] - South Korea's Kospi index gained 0.1% while the small-cap Kosdaq declined by 1.02%, indicating mixed performance in the region [3] Group 2 - Investors are closely monitoring China's military exercises around Taiwan, which have impacted the Taiwan Weighted Index, down 0.66%, with major tech companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Hon Hai experiencing declines [4] - Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index remained flat after earlier gains, reflecting a cautious market sentiment [4]