South Korea leads losses regionally
South Korea’s Kospi led losses among the region’s major markets as it declined 2.05%.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong slipped 0.59%. HSBC saw its stock drop around 3% while Standard Chartered slipped more than 2%. The moves added to sharp declines seen Monday on the back of reports that they allegedly moved large sums of suspicious funds.
Meanwhile, logistics firm ZTO Express, the latest U.S.-listed Chinese company seeking to debut in the city, is guiding the pricing for its Hong Kong share offering at 210 Hong Kong dollars ($27.10) per share, according to Reuters. The final pricing is expected to be set later on Tuesday.
Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed, with the Shanghai composite down about 0.4% while the Shenzhen component was fractionally higher.
The S&P/ASX 200 in Australia slipped 0.84%.
Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index traded 0.61% lower.
Wall Street losses
Investor reaction to the overnight drop in stocks stateside was watched. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 509.72 points, or 1.8%, to close at 27,147.70. The S&P 500 lost 1.2% to finish its trading day at 3,281.06. The Nasdaq Composite closed just 0.1% lower at 10,778.80.
Monday’s declines on Wall Street marked the first time since February that the S&P 500 posted four straight daily losses. The Dow, meanwhile, had its worst day since Sept. 8.
“In grasping for the facts that fit the market figures, there seems little doubt that amongst them are the averse trends in covid-19 infection rates in several big European countries and too the United States — trends which have become more painfully evident since late last week — and the associated prospect of more draconian social distancing measures (whether self-imposed or mandated),” Ray Attrill, head of foreign exchange strategy at National Australia Bank, wrote in a note.
Currency moves
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was last at 93.572 after touching an earlier low of 93.523.
The Japanese yen traded at 104.53 per dollar after weakening from levels below 104.4 against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar was at $0.7214 following yesterday’s drop from levels above $0.73.
Source: CNBC