Asia stock were uniformly negative Wednesday, due mostly to weakness in Hong Kong and mainland China.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 dished off 141.43 points, or 0.4%, to 35,477.75.
Japanese IT multinational Fujitsu was the second largest loser on the Nikkei after its Europe co-CEO apologized said the company had a “moral obligation” to compensate wrongly convicted sub-postmasters in the U.K.
China AMC Fund Management Co will reportedly temporarily suspend the Nikkei 225 ETF fund trading on Wednesday due to high premiums.
In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index fell 589.02 points, or 3.7%, to 15,276.90.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was the worst-performing index for a second straight day in Asia, falling 2.76% as real estate and consumer non-cyclical stocks declined.
Chinese tech giant Alibaba’s subsidiary Alibaba Health Information Technology, which plunged 7.43%, was the biggest loser on the HSI.
It was followed by residential property manager Longfor Group, down 5.7%, and tech heavyweight Meituan, which shed 5.5%.
CHINA
The mainland Chinese CSI 300 fell to an almost five-year low after China’s fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth missed estimates.
In Shanghai, the CSI 300 slid 71.8 points, or 2.2%, to 3,229.08.
The country’s economy grew by 5.2% in the October to December period last year, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday, missing expectations of a 5.3% growth forecast by economists polled by Reuters. GDP climbed 5.2% for the whole of 2023.
In other markets
In Singapore, the Straits Times Index dipped 42.77 points or 1.3%, to 3,142.22.
In Taiwan, the Taiex subtracted 185.08 points, or 1.1%, to 17,161.79.
In Korea, the Kospi index lost 61.69 points, or 2.5%, to 2,435.90.
In New Zealand, the NZX 50 eased back 3.72 points to 11,767.03.
In Australia, the ASX 200 sank 21.71 points, or 0.3%, to 7,393.08.
