SHENZHEN, CHINA – AUGUST 26: Aerial view of Shenzhen skyline in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China on August 26, 2020. (Photo credit: He Shaoping/VCG, Getty Images)
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Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Thursday as Wall Street closed lower on rising geopolitical tensions and comments from US President Donald Trump.
U.S. defense stocks fell after President Trump said he would “not allow” defense companies to pay dividends or buy back stock until grievances about the defense industry, such as executive compensation and production issues, are addressed.
Oil prices also fell overnight after President Trump said Venezuela’s interim authorities would hand over up to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, raising concerns about rising global supplies.
brent crude oil futures It fell 0.51% to $60.39 per barrel. US West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil As of 7:30 a.m. Singapore time (6:30 p.m. ET Wednesday), the price was up 0.61% at $56.33 per barrel.
Japanese benchmark Nikkei Stock Average The index fell 1.63%, weighed down by basic materials and technology stocks. The biggest decliner was SoftBank, which plummeted 7.59%. Tokyo Electronprovides essential chip manufacturing equipment to manufacturing foundries. Nvidia’s Chips were down 4.01%. The broader Topix index fell 0.77%.
Korean Kospi The index settled just above the flatline at 4,552.37, while the small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.35%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 ended 0.29% higher at 8,720.8. shares of blue scope steel It fell 1.57% after the company rejected a $9 billion takeover offer from a US-based company. steel dynamics and an Australian conglomerate. SGHthe stock price also fell by 1.92%.
On Thursday afternoon, BlueScope’s largest investor, AustralianSuper, increased its voting stake in the steel company from 12.5% to 13.52%, according to a filing after the bell.
hong kong Hang Seng Index The index fell 1.59%, led by basic materials stocks and technology stocks. lenovo group was down 3.44%, Kuaishou Technology down 2.85% and Baidu down 2.76%. The mainland’s CSI 300 fell by 1.04%.
Shares in Knowledge Atlas Technology JSC, better known as Zhipu, rose as much as 15% in its Hong Kong debut following a $558 million initial public offering, making it the first Chinese “AI tiger” to go public.
India’s Nifty 50 index was down 0.83%, while the BSE Sensex index was down 0.63%.
US stock futures were little changed at the start of Asian hours. S&P500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average It ended a three-day winning streak.
Overnight, the broader market index fell about 0.3%, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropping 466 points, or about 0.9%.
High-tech oriented Nasdaq Composite Up nearly 0.2%, helped by Google’s parent company’s 2.4% rise alphabet With this, the company’s market capitalization exceeded Apple’s for the first time since 2019.
—CNBC’s Pia Singh and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.
