SINGAPORE — Stocks in Asia-Pacific were little changed in Thursday trade following an overnight bounce for tech stocks on Wall Street as a recent rotation into cyclicals paused.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 sat above the flatline while the Topix index was 0.66% lower. In South Korea, the Kospi shed 0.53%.
Mainland Chinese stocks were mixed by the afternoon, with the Shanghai composite dipping 0.2% while the Shenzhen component gained 0.4%.
Shares of Australia declined and the S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.5%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan hovered above the flatline.
Tech stocks bounce
Technology shares in the region rose on Thursday after the sector bounced back on Wall Street overnight.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Chinese tech firms soared by the afternoon: Tencent gained 5.44% while Xiaomi jumped 4.45% and JD.com surged 8%. Alibaba also added 3.14%. The moves came after China’s tech giants sold off on Wednesday amid potential anti-monopoly rules.
In Japan, Softbank Group shares jumped 1.28%. Game maker Nintendo also surged 3.52%. Over in South Korea, Kakao’s stock gained 0.42%.
In recent sessions, investors have moved out of technology and “stay-at-home” stocks in favor of cyclicals that would benefit from an economic recovery. That came following a Monday announcement by Pfizer and BioNTech that their coronavirus vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 among those without evidence of prior infection.
Still, the pandemic situation remains severe, with the U.S. recently setting a new record of average daily cases while the United Kingdom reported its highest daily deaths since May.
Currencies
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 93.022 after seeing an earlier low of 92.924.
The Japanese yen traded at 105.27 per dollar, still off levels below 104.3 against the greenback seen earlier this week. The Australian dollar was at $0.7275, having seen levels around $0.73 yesterday.
Oil prices edged higher in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.23% to $43.90 per barrel. U.S. crude futures added 0.34% to $41.59 per barrel.
Correction — This article was updated to reflect the movements of MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan. A previous version referred to a different index.
Source: CNBC