SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific edged higher in Tuesday morning trade as several major Chinese tech stocks in Hong Kong remained under pressure following a Monday tumble.
In Tuesday morning trade, shares of Chinese tech giant Tencent fell 2.78% while Alibaba dropped 2.6% and Meituan declined 3.14%. The Hang Seng Tech index slipped 0.82%.
The broader Hang Seng index in Hong Kong gained 0.4%, after seeing a more than 4% plunge yesterday on the back of regulatory fears on China’s technology and private education sector.
Mainland Chinese stocks rose, with the Shanghai composite up 0.46% while the Shenzhen component gained 0.758%. Industrial profits in China jumped 20% year-on-year in June, official data showed.
Elsewhere, the Nikkei 225 in Japan gained 0.63% while the Topix index advanced 0.61%. South Korea’s Kospi traded 0.76% higher.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 climbed 0.4%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan traded 0.26% higher.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 gained 0.24% to 4,422.30 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 82.76 points higher to 35,144.31. The Nasdaq Composite was fractionally higher at 14,840.71. The gains left all three major indexes stateside closing at new record highs.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 92.596 after a recent fall from above 92.8.
The Japanese yen traded at 110.28 per dollar, stronger than levels around 110.5 seen against the greenback yesterday. The Australian dollar was at $0.7378, above levels below $0.736 seen yesterday.
Oil prices were higher in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.35% to $74.76 per barrel. U.S. crude futures advanced 0.22% to $72.07 per barrel.
Source: CNBC