SHENZHEN, CHINA – AUGUST 26: An aerial view of the Shenzhen skyline on August 26, 2020 in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province of China. (Photo by He Shaoping/VCG via Getty Images)
Vcg | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets opened mixed Thursday after Wall Street closed in the red on growing geopolitical tensions and comments from U.S. President Donald Trump.
U.S. defense stocks fell after the president said he “will not permit” defense companies to issue dividends or stock buybacks until they address his complaints about the industry, including executive pay packages and production issues.
Oil prices also dropped overnight after Trump said that Venezuela’s interim authorities would turn over as much as 50 million barrels of crude to the U.S., raising concerns about an increase in global supply.
Brent crude futures fell 0.51% to $60.39 a barrel, while the U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude added 0.61% to $56.33 per barrel, as of 7.30 a.m. Singapore time (Wednesday 6.30 p.m. EST).
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.69%, dragged by the basic materials and tech sectors. Among the biggest losers on the index were tech-focused investor SoftBank, which lost 4%, and Tokyo Electron, which provides essential chipmaking equipment to foundries that manufacture Nvidia’s chips, was 2.9% lower. Meanwhile, the Topix index retreated 0.17%.
South Korea’s Kospi added 1.27%, while the small-cap Kosdaq climbed 0.1%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 ticked slightly higher in volatile trading. Shares of BlueScope Steel fell 1.87% early Thursday, after the company rejected a $9 billion takeover bid from Australian conglomerate SGH and U.S.-based Steel Dynamics.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index declined 0.97%. Basic materials and tech stocks led losses on the index, with Lenovo Group falling 3.44%, Kuaishou Technology losing 2.85%, and Baidu Inc trading 2.76% lower. The mainland’s CSI 300 was flat.
U.S. equity futures were little changed in early Asian hours, after the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average snapped a three-day winning streak.
Overnight, the broad market index shed about 0.3% while the Dow fell 466 points, or roughly 0.9%.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained nearly 0.2%, aided by a 2.4% jump in Google parent Alphabet that led the company’s market cap to surpass Apple’s for the first time since 2019.
— CNBC’s Pia Singh and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.
