SINGAPORE – Asia Pacific stocks were mostly lower in trading Tuesday, with Chinese internet stocks falling again in Hong Kong as regulatory fears re-emerged.
In Tuesday morning’s trading, Tencent’s Hong Kong-listed shares fell 3.13%, while Alibaba was down 1.94% and JD.com was down 2.05%. The Hang Seng Tech index lost 0.56%.
Those losses came after China’s State Administration of Market Regulation released a document on Monday that drafted rules to prohibit unfair competition in the Internet sector.
Hong Kong’s broader Hang Seng index has hardly changed.
Mainland stocks were lower, with the Shanghai Composite down 0.11% while the Shenzhen Component was slightly below.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 gained 0.17% while the Topix index was broadly unchanged. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.81%.
The S & P / ASX 200 in Australia lost 0.9%.
Minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s monetary policy meeting in August, released on Tuesday, showed that the central bank acknowledged that delta breakouts and associated lockouts “brought a high level of uncertainty to the outlook for the second half of 2021 to have”.
Investors continue to monitor the Covid situation in Australia, with the country’s largest cities currently on lockdown.
MSCI’s broadest index for Asia Pacific stocks outside of Japan was down 0.58%.
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Overnight in the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 110.02 points to 35,625.40 while the S&P 500 rose 0.26% to 4,479.71. The Nasdaq Composite lagged as it fell 0.2% to 14,793.76.
Investors will be looking at US retail sales, due to be released Tuesday by the US Census Bureau. Economists polled by Dow Jones are calling for a 0.3% decline for the past month after a surprising increase of 0.6% in June.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback versus a basket of its competitors, came in at 92.678 – it’s still struggling to recover from a recent drop above 92.8.
The Japanese yen was trading at 109.27 per dollar, stronger than yesterday against the greenback above 109.5. The Australian dollar changed hands at $ 0.7309 after falling above $ 0.735 yesterday.
Oil prices were higher on the morning of Asian trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude oil futures rising 0.19% to $ 69.64 a barrel. US crude oil futures rose 0.27% to $ 67.47 a barrel.
