Asian stocks were widely lower on Monday, extending last week’s selling. President Donald Trump’s comments Saturday urging Apple Inc.
AAPL, -0.81%
to move its manufacturing to the U.S. helped pressure Asian tech stocks. The region is home to many of the tech giant’s key suppliers, especially in China and Taiwan. Indexes in both were down more than 1%.
Read: Trump urges Apple to move manufacturing to the U.S.
After an initial 0.3% decline, the Nikkei
NIK, +0.30%
was last trading up 0.3%, helped by electronics and machinery stocks amid Friday’s gains in the dollar. The Nikkei was trying to snap a six-session losing streak. Sony
6758, +0.24%
climbed 0.4% while Fanuc
6954, +0.75%
and Omron
6645, +0.43%
rose 0.9%. Of the 33 Topix subindexes, 20 were up. Banks and insurers were being helped by the end-of-week rise in Treasury yields after the strong U.S. jobs report.
Hong Kong stocks slid along with their mainland counterparts as recent weakness continued. The Hang Seng Index
HSI, -1.12%
set another 13-month closing low on Friday, and it was last off 1.2%. Macau casinos and Chinese developers remained under pressure amid continued caution regarding U.S.-China trade; the countries’ trade gap hit another record in August. Tencent
0700, -0.51%
surrendered early gains after undertaking its first stock buyback in four years.
On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite
SHCOMP, -0.96%
was down 0.9% while the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite
399106, -1.52%
was off close to 2%.
Korea’s Kospi
SEU, +0.20%
rose 0.2% as beaten-down chip companies Samsung
005930, +1.11%
and SK Hynix
000660, +0.79%
climbed amid the Trump-Apple comments. But Taiwan’s Taiex
Y9999, -1.12%
sank after those same comments, with Apple suppliers such as Foxconn
2354, -2.13%
dropping over 1% and Largan Precision
3008, -7.82%
sinking over 7%.
Australia’s ASX 200
XJO, -0.03%
slipped 0.2%, while stocks in New Zealand
NZ50GR, -0.51%
fell 0.5%, while Singapore’s benchmark
STI, -0.59%
dropped 0.7%.
Providing critical information for the U.S. trading day. Subscribe to MarketWatch’s free Need to Know newsletter. Sign up here.
Source : MTV
