SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mostly lower in Friday morning trade after the S&P 500 on Wall Street cruised to yet another record closing high overnight.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dipped 0.48% in morning trade.
Shares of Tencent-backed financial technology firm Linklogis surged more than 8% from their issue price in their Hong Kong debut on Friday. Shares of Chinese tech juggernaut Tencent edged fractionally higher.
Mainland Chinese stocks declined as the Shanghai composite shed about 0.5% and the Shenzhen component slipped 0.71%.
The moves came as official data released Friday showed Chinese consumer and producer inflation rising in March as compared with a year ago.
The consumer price index for March rose 0.4% from last year, more than expectations for a 0.3% increase in a Reuters poll. The producer price index for March jumped 4.4% from last year, against expectations in a Reuters poll for a 3.5% rise.
Elsewhere in Japan, stocks bucked the overall downward trend regionally. The Nikkei 225 rose 0.54% while the Topix index advanced 0.61%. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.25%.
Stocks in Australia dipped as the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.35%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.25% lower.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 gained 0.42% to 4,097.17 — its second straight record close. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also advanced 57.31 points to end its trading day at 33,503.57 while the the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.03% to close at 13,829.31.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 92.061 after an earlier decline from levels around 92.4.
The Japanese yen traded at 109.28 per dollar, stronger than levels above 109.5 against the greenback seen yesterday. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7644, higher than levels around $0.76 seen earlier in the week.
Oil prices rose in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures fractionally higher to $63.24 per barrel. U.S. crude futures advanced 0.27% to $59.76 per barrel.
Source: CNBC