The sails of the Opera House are illuminated with projections on the opening night of Vivid Sydney 2023 in Sydney, Australia, on Friday, May 26, 2023.
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Asia-Pacific markets largely fell, led by losses in Hong Kong as investors assess comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve board members and digest Australia’s October inflation figures.
Shares of Chinese food delivery giant Meituan plunged 12% after warning of a demand slowdown for its services in its third-quarter earnings call.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 2.27%, leading losses among major Asian benchmarks, while the mainland Chinese CSI 300 index also slid 0.87%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 extended gains from Tuesday and climbed 0.29% to close at 7,035.3. as the country’s overall inflation rate for October slowed to 4.8%, its lowest rate since January 2022.
South Korea’s Kospi slipped marginally, finishing at 2,519.81 after hitting a two-month high on Tuesday, but the small-cap Kosdaq closed 0.73% up at 822.44.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.26% to end at 33,321.22, marking three straight days of losses, while the Topix was down 0.51% and closed at 2,364.5.
Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes rose after Waller’s comments that the Fed could be done hiking rates, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average adding 0.24%.
In contrast, Governor Michelle Bowman said more rate hikes will likely be needed, “so as to keep policy sufficiently restrictive to bring inflation down to our 2 percent target in a timely way.”
The broader S&P 500 index inched higher by 0.1%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite gained 0.29%.
— CNBC’s Pia Singh and Alex Harring contributed to this report.
Source link: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/11/29/asia-stock-markets.html