Foreign Market Wrap
World markets mostly fell Thursday ahead of another set of U.S. jobs data and news that British retail sales fell in August for the first time since January.
Japanese shares erased all their gains to end slightly lower on Thursday, as raw material stocks declined and the yen resumed its ascent against the dollar a day after government's first intervention in six years.
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average finished 7.06 points down at 9,509.50 after touching a high of 9,545 earlier in the day.
Expectations that Japan is determined to make its yen selling policy effective made Japanese exporter stocks outperform most of Asia. Toyota Motor Corp. closed up 1.7 percent, Sony Corporation also climbed 1.7 percent.
China's Shanghai Composite Index slid 1.9 percent to a three-week low of 2,602.46 as investors worried that the banking regulator will order banks to raise the amount of capital they hold in reserve following a surge in lending over the previous year. The continued strength of the yuan, which is damaging to exporters combined with profit taking ahead of holidays were also added as factors.
Agricultural Bank of China Ltd fell 2.6 percent in Hong Kong and 1.9 percent in Shanghai, where it traded for the first time below its IPO price in mid-July.
Elsewhere:
Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.2 percent to 21,691.45.
South Korea's Kospi declined 0.7 percent to 1,811.85.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.2 percent to 4,605.30.
India’s Sensex lost .4%.
Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur Composite Index shed 1.49 points to 1472.95.
Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite Index lost .459%.
Shenzhen Composite dropped 2.2 percent to 1,156.51.
Taiwan's Taiex was down .785%.
Singapore's Straits Times Index was down .2%.
New Zealand's NZX-50 up .011%.
Philippine shares were up .8%.
Shares in Thailand gained .4%.
