Trading was mixed in Asia-Pacific stock markets early Thursday, as slight declines in Australia, China, Hong Kong and Japan were being offset by bigger gains in the region’s emerging markets like South Korea, Indonesia and Singapore.
Trading cues were lacking as investors responded to cross-asset shifts like an overnight pullback in the dollar and Treasury yields as well as a rebound in oil. S&P 500 futures
ESU8, -0.23%
were down 0.2%, but futures for the tech-heavy Nasdaq
NQU8, -0.88%
were down nearly 1% following the deep plunge in Facebook stock
FB, +1.32%
in after-hours trading Wednesday.
Japan’s Nikkei
NIK, -0.21%
was down slightly, with shares of robot maker Fanuc
6954, -2.97%
reversing course, down 2.5%, erasing most of the week’s gain and putting the year’s drop back at 21%. Eisai shares plummeted after news that the U.S. FDA said more testing is needed for a midstage Alzheimer’s drug trial it is conducting with Biogen. Biogen
BIIB, +2.95%
finished after-hours trading in the U.S. down 11% and Eisai
4523, -16.17%
slumped 16% in Tokyo, halving this month’s stock surge.
Chinese stocks were lower, with pressure coming from steel and computer names. The Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, -0.63%
was off 0.3% while the Shenzhen Composite
399106, -0.69%
declined 0.2%. But banking and property stocks remained steady.
Hong Kong stocks slipped, with the Hang Seng
HSI, -0.69%
down 0.5%. Ping An Insurance
2318, -0.61%
rose an early 1%, then slipped into the red, while property-related names did well. But HSBC
0005, -0.87%
was down about 1% and smartphone-component maker AAC
2018, -0.89%
eased 1.5%.
Elsewhere, Korea’s Kospi
SEU, +0.55%
nudged higher, as chip maker SK Hynix
000660, +2.48%
got a boost after posting record profit, and indexes in Taiwan
Y9999, +0.16%
, Singapore
STI, +0.11%
and Indonesia
JAKIDX, +0.03%
rose as well. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200
XJO, +0.00%
inched lower, as New Zealand stocks
NZ50GR, +0.13%
gained a bit.
Source : MTV
