Asia Stocks Mixed After Slump On Wall Street

On Friday, shares in the Asia-Pacific markets were trading mostly lower, which was the last day of the third quarter of the year.

This came after another sell-off overnight on Wall Street and general unrest in global markets because of uncertainty and recession concerns.

The official factory activity data in China also expanded in August unexpectedly, as it managed to beat estimates. It turned out to be 50.1, which is significantly higher than the predicted 49.6.

Markets mostly lower

There was a 1.83% drop in the Nikkei 225 index in Japan to 25,937.21, while a 1.76% loss brought down the Topix index to 1,835.94.

A 1.23% fall was also recorded in the Australian S&P/ASX 200 index, which ended the day at 6,474.20. Meanwhile, there was a 0.27% rise recorded in the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong in the final hours of trading.

However, the Hang Seng Tech index was not that lucky, as it recorded losses of 1.05% for the day. There was also a 0.55% drop in the Shanghai Composite in China to 3,024.39.

Likewise, a fall of 1.29% was also seen in the Shenzhen Component which brought it to 10,778.61. The South Korean Kospi index lost 0.71% for the day to come down to 2,155.49.

As for the Kosdaq, it shed 0.39% to come down to 672.65. The MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares not including Japan fell 0.11% for the day.

US markets

Thursday’s session saw US markets drop, with the S&P 500 recording a new low for the year and also hitting a new closing low.

There was a 2.1% drop in the benchmark index for the day, which saw it close at a value of 3,640.47. There was also a 1.54% fall in the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which fell by 458.13 points to 29,225.61 points.

There was also a 2.84% loss in the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite, which ended the day at 10,737.51. Market analysts said that there were still inflation and geopolitical risks.

They said that risk assets were feeling the pressure because of this because there are expectations of higher borrowing costs and lower growth.

Apple suppliers

Shares of most of the suppliers of Apple Inc. in the Asia-Pacific region recorded sharp declines after Bank of America decided to downgrade its outlook for the iPhone maker to neutral.

Moreover, it also reduced its price targets in light of the macroeconomic challenges ahead for the company.

There was a 4.89% drop in shares of Nidec in Japan in morning trade and a 3.79% drop was also seen in Alps Alpine.

A 2.41% fall was recorded in Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and a 4.39% loss was seen in Largan Precision.

There was a drop of 2.83% in Samsung SDI of South Korea, while Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix saw gains for the day.

As for the US markets overnight, they saw a 5% drop in the shares of Apple Inc. after the downgrade, which resulted in a sell-off in several other tech companies.