Asian indexes closed mostly lower on Friday as investors pored over corporate earnings in the region.
The Nikkei 225 dropped 119.80 points, or 0.6%, to 19,959.84
The Hang Seng Index fell 151.78 points, or 0.6%, to 26,979.39
Within Asia, regional markets focused their attention on corporate earnings.
Hong Kong-listed insurer AIA Group reported operating profit after tax rose 16% on-year to $2.26 billion U.S. in the first half of the year, the company said in a statement issued to the Hong Kong Exchange Friday. AIA shares were down 2.1%
Shares of Nissan closed down 4.1% after the automaker announced a 12.8% on-year fall in operating profit for its fiscal first quarter Thursday. The company recorded operating profit of 153.3 billion yen ($1.38 billion U.S.) for its April-to-June quarter, below forecasts for 171.45 billion yen
Reporting season was also underway for Singapore's banks. United Overseas Bank announced an on-year 5.5% rise in net profit for the second quarter. The bank's net profit after tax stood at 845 million Singapore dollars ($621 million U.S.).
That followed Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp's Thursday announcement that its second-quarter net profit rose 22% on-year. UOB shares were down 2% and OCBC shares lower by 1.13%.
Other market movers included tech names in South Korea. Samsung Electronics closed down 4.1% a day after the company reported record profit. Other tech stocks also moved lower, with SK Hynix falling 5.6% by the end of the session.
In corporate news, Toshiba reached a deal to pay SCANA $2.168 billion U.S. to exit from incomplete U.S. nuclear projects undertaken by Toshiba subsidiary Westinghouse. Toshiba was expected to make the payout in installments starting in October. Toshiba shares finished down 10.9%
The economic calendar for Friday was fairly crowded. South Korea kicked off data releases, announcing that industrial output had slipped 0.2% in June, compared with the month before, missing the 1% gain forecast in an economist survey.
Over in Japan, retail sales for June increased 2.1% on year, compared with the 2.3% expected by economists
Meanwhile, Japan core consumer prices gained 0.4% on-year in June, in line with the annual rise in prices forecast. Without taking changes in fresh food and energy prices into consideration, consumer prices were unchanged in June on year.
The yen firmed slightly following the headlines, with the U.S. dollar fetching as little as as 110.90 yen, compared with around 111.13 yen seen before the Consumer Price Index data release. It later gave up those gains to stand at 111.09 yen to the dollar
Australian finished the day and the week down, driven by broad-based losses across all sub-indexes. The heavily-weighted financials sub-index was down 1.7% and the health care sub-index tumbled 2.1%
In other markets
The CSI 300 in Shanghai inched forward 9.7 points, or 0.3%, to 3,721.89
In Taiwan, the Taiex index erased 85.32 points, or 0.8%, to 10,423.05
In Korea, the Kospi index retreated 42.25 points, or 1.7%, to 2,400.99
In Singapore, the Straits Times Index dipped 23.96 points, or 0.7%, to 3,330.75
In New Zealand, the NZX 50 moved downward 72.21 points, or 0.9%, to 7,639.51
In Australia, the ASX 200 removed 82.19 points, or 1.4%, to 5,702.82
