SINGAPORE — Stocks in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Wednesday morning trade after major indexes on Wall Street surged to record highs overnight.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index shed 0.32% in early trade. Trading of Xiaomi shares in Hong Kong was suspended on Wednesday morning. Reuters reported that the Chinese smartphone maker has raised $3.91 billion as part of a deal that includes the largest top-up placement in Hong Kong, citing a term sheet.
Meanwhile, shares of Evergrande Property Services — a unit of Chinese property developer China Evergrande Group — dipped roughly 0.5% from their issue price as they made their debut on Wednesday.
Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed: The Shanghai composite dipped 0.32% while the Shenzhen component added 0.102%.
Elsewhere, South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.93%. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was 0.17% lower while the Topix index added 0.28%
Elsewhere, shares in Australia were lower, as the S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.37%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded little changed.
Australia’s economy expanded 3.3% quarter-on-quarter in September, according to data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday. That smashed expectations for a 2.6% rise by economists in a Reuters poll and followed a 7% quarter-on-quarter contraction in the June quarter.
Following that release, the Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7373, after touching an earlier low of $0.7362.
Wall Street sees new records
In coronavirus vaccine developments, Pfizer and BioNTech said Tuesday that they have applied to the European Medicines Agency for conditional marketing authorization of their coronavirus vaccine. If authorization is granted, it could enable use of the vaccine in Europe this month, according to BioNTech.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 91.218 following a decline earlier this week from levels above 91.5.
The Japanese yen traded at 104.34 per dollar, off levels below 104.1 against the greenback seen earlier in the trading week.
Oil prices slipped in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 0.7% to $47.09 per barrel. U.S. crude futures also shed 0.76% to $44.21 per barrel.
— CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.
Source: CNBC