Stocks, company news, currencies, Covid, oil
SINGAPORE — Japanese stocks dragged losses across Asia-Pacific markets on Tuesday after Wall Street tumbled overnight.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan fell 1.54% in morning trade, while the Topix index fell 1.36%.
The South Korean Kospi lost 1.15% and the Kosdaq lost 2.04%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slipped 0.67% and the Hang Seng Tech index lost 1.12%.
Mainland Chinese markets were mixed at the open after falling on Monday. The Shanghai Composite was just below the flat line, while the Shenzhen Component rose 0.3%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.34%
MSCI’s broadest Asia Pacific ex-Japan equity index was down 0.63%.
Tuesday is quiet on the data front, but investors will be eagerly awaiting the next US inflation report and Chinese GDP report later this week. The Bank of Korea will also meet this week.
In company news, Japanese automaker Toyota Motor said on Monday it was extending the suspension of a production line at its Motomachi plant to investigate the cause of a recall for one of its models. .
About 4,000 units will be affected by the suspension and the global production plan will not be changed, the company said. Shares of Toyota fell 1.35%.
In the United States, the main indexes fell ahead of the earnings season.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 164.31 points, or 0.52%, to close at 31,173.84. The S&P 500 slipped 1.15% to 3,854.43 and the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.26% to 11,372.60.
US-listed shares of electric vehicle maker Nio fell nearly 9% overnight on Covid concerns in China.
Currencies and Oil
The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, rose above 108 and was last at 108.464.
The Japanese yen was trading at 137.18 to the dollar, after weakening above 137 against the greenback on Monday.
“Markets appeared to view the expansion of Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party majority in the upper house as an endorsement of the BoJ’s ultra-loose monetary policy,” wrote Carol Kong, senior associate, international economics and strategy. currency at the Commonwealth Bank, in a Tuesday Note.
The Bank of Japan’s commitment to keeping interest rates low is increasingly an anomaly and has weakened the yen.
The Australian dollar has weakened sharply this week and last stood at $0.6731.
“AUD/USD broke below 0.6750 support against a backdrop of stronger USD,” Kong wrote. “Concerns over a sharp global slowdown and fears of more virus restrictions in China will continue to weigh on the AUD in our view,” she added.
Oil futures declined in Asian trading. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude fell 1.36% to $102.67 a barrel, while international benchmark Brent crude fell 1.2% to $105.82 a barrel.