SINGAPORE — Stocks in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Wednesday morning trade even as Wall Street surges to record highs overnight.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 dipped 0.14% in early trade while the Topix index added 0.24% South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.65%.
Shares in Australia nudged higher, as the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.1%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.19% higher.
Australia’s third-quarter GDP print is expected to be out at around 8:30 a.m. HK/SIN on Wednesday.
Ahead of that release, the Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7374, after seeing levels below $0.736 yesterday.
Wall Street sees new records
Sentiment may also get a boost from coronavirus vaccine hopes. 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
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 91.313 following a decline earlier this week from levels above 91.5.
The Japanese yen traded at 104.25 per dollar, off levels below 104.1 against the greenback seen earlier in the trading week.
— CNBC’s Holly Ellyatt contributed to this report.
Source: CNBC