Stocks in Asia Pacific were mixed in Wednesday morning trade as major indexes on Wall Street notched new records yet again overnight.
Mainland Chinese stocks edged higher in early trade, with the Shanghai composite up about 0.1% while the Shenzhen component added 0.258%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index gained 0.43%.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 was fractionally lower while the Topix index shed 0.26%. South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.75%.
Meanwhile, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.2%.
Overall, the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was little changed.
In corporate developments, Chinese tech giant Alibaba’s affiliate Ant Group on Tuesday filed for a concurrent listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s STAR market — a Nasdaq-style tech board — and the Hong Kong stock exchange. Hong Kong-listed shares of Alibaba jumped 3.57% in Wednesday morning trade.
Ant Group, which runs the highly popular Alipay mobile payments app in China, has not disclosed details about the pricing of its shares.
Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite rose to all-time highs. The broader market index added 0.4% to close at 3,443.62 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.8% to end its trading day at 11,466.47. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lagged as it declined 60.02 points, or 0.2%, to close at 28,248.44 — snapping a three-day winning streak.
The moves stateside came on the back of mixed economic data. U.S. Census on Tuesday reported a 36% surge in sales of newly built homes in July. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index, however, fell for a second straight month to 84.8 in August from July’s 91.7.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was last at 93.042 from levels above 93.2 seen earlier in the trading week.
The Japanese yen traded at 106.49 per dollar after seeing an earlier high of 106.32 against the greenback. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.72, in a trading week that has seen in mostly trading between $0.716 and $0.72.
Oil prices were mixed in the morning of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures up 0.24% to $45.97 per barrel. U.S. crude futures were flat at $43.35 per barrel.
Source: CNBC