SINGAPORE — Stocks in major Asia-Pacific markets were mixed in Tuesday trade as investors react to the October fixing of China’s benchmark lending rate.
Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed by the afternoon, with the Shanghai composite down 0.13% while the Shenzhen component added 0.433%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index sat fractionally lower.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 declined 0.53% while the Topix index also shed 0.65%.
South Korea’s Kospi was 0.42% lower. Shares of South Korean chipmaker SK Hynix fell more than 1.5% after the firm said Tuesday it will buy Intel’s NAND memory and storage business for $9 billion.
South Korean automakers Hyundai Motor and Kia Motors also saw their shares fall 3.57% and 2.03%, respectively. The two firms warned of a $2.9 billion hit to earnings related to engine issues, Reuters reported.
Meanwhile, shares in Australia fell, with the S&P/ASX 200 down 0.75%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped 0.16%.
China’s latest one-year and five-year loan prime rates (LPRs) were left unchanged on Tuesday, in line with expectations from a majority of traders and analysts in a snap Reuters poll. At present, the one-year LPR sits at 3.85% while the five-year rate is at 4.65%.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 93.394 after an earlier low of 93.386.
The Japanese yen traded at 105.53 per dollar after swinging above the 105.4 level against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7045 after slipping from levels above $0.71 yesterday.
Oil prices were lower in the afternoon of Asian trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 0.77% to $42.29 per barrel. U.S. crude futures also declined about 0.6% to $40.57 per barrel.
Source: CNBC