Market Update
Asian markets traded lower Monday following weak data from China.
The Nikkei was down 2%. The Shanghai Composite fell 1.9% while the Hang Seng was down 0.6%. The Sensex slipped 0.1% and the All Ordinaries gave up half a percent.
Released earlier today, HSBC’s PMI for China was down to 50.9 from an earlier reading of 52.5.
Stocks on the Move
Japanese stocks were down on a stronger yen with exporters among the major losers.
Index heavyweight Sony was down 1.2% while Toyota was 1.4% lower. However, Nissan accelerated 1.4% after the company reported an over 10% increase in December U.S. sales.
Toshiba Corp. was also about a percent higher on a Nikkei newspaper report the company along with South Korea’s Hynix would beat U.S. rival Micron in the production of next-generation memory chips expected in 2016.
Hitachi Construction Machinery dropped 2.7% while Komatsu was 2.22% lower.
In Hong Kong, Kingsoft Corp. gained 3.5% following last week’s announcement it had struck a licensing agreement to grant Tencent the right to use an office software it had developed. Tencent was up 1.4%.
Financials were among the big losers with Bank of Communications down 1.7% and ICBC down 1.4%. AgBank fell about 2%.
Jiangxi Copper melted 1.6% while its mainland-listed shares were down 2.1%. Also on the mainland, Aluminum Corp. of China was down 2.4%.
In India, Tata Power was the top loser, down 2.1%, followed by ICICI Bank, down 1.5%. Coal India was down 1.1% while RIL, Hero MotoCorp, and Bajaj Auto all fell about a percent each.
Banks also weighed on the index in Sydney with CBA slipping 0.1% while NAB fell about half a percent. ANZ and WBC were both down 0.7% each, respectively.
Karoon Gas Australia lost over 5% after a drop in crude-oil futures. Santos was down 1.8%.