Stocks in Asia Pacific were lower in Wednesday afternoon trade as major indexes on Wall Street notched new records yet again overnight.
Mainland Chinese stocks fell by the afternoon, with the Shanghai composite down about 1.1% while the Shenzhen component declined 1.515%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dipped 0.21%.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was 0.18% lower while the Topix index shed 0.21%. South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.24%.
Meanwhile, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.87%.
Over in New Zealand, the S&P/NZX 50 hovered above the flatline. Trading on the country’s stock exchange was halted earlier on Wednesday following a potential second cyber attack, Reuters reported citing the NZX.
Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was 0.22% lower.
In corporate developments, Chinese tech giant Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Group on Tuesday filed for a concurrent listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR market — a Nasdaq-style tech board — and the Hong Kong stock exchange. Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba jumped 3.57% by the afternoon.
Ant Group, which runs the highly popular Alipay mobile payments app in China, has not disclosed details about the pricing of its shares.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose to all-time highs. The broader market index added 0.4% to close at 3,443.62 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.8% to end its trading day at 11,466.47. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged as it declined 60.02 points, or 0.2%, to close at 28,248.44 — snapping a three-day winning streak.
The moves stateside came on the back of mixed economic data. U.S. Census on Tuesday reported a 36% surge in sales of newly built homes in July. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, however, fell for a second straight month to 84.8 in August from July’s 91.7.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was last at 93.103 from levels above 93.2 seen earlier in the trading week.
The Japanese yen traded at 106.43 per dollar after seeing an earlier high of 106.32 against the greenback. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7192, in a trading week that has seen in mostly trading between $0.716 and $0.72.
Oil prices were mixed in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.33% to $46.01 per barrel. U.S. crude futures were flat at $43.35 per barrel.
Source: CNBC