SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were lower on Wednesday, with Chinese tech stocks in Hong Kong seeing big losses.
Hong Kong-listed shares of Tencent dropped 2.99% on Wednesday while Alibaba fell 2.95% and Meituan plunged 5.09%. The Hang Seng Tech index slipped 3.19% to 6,441.62.
The broader Hang Seng index in Hong Kong led losses among the region’s major markets, falling 1.57% to close at 25,628.74.
Mainland Chinese stocks declined on the day, with the Shanghai composite shedding 0.98% to 3,562.31 and the Shenzhen component falling 1.095% to 14,393.51.
Industrial profits in China surged 16.3% year-on-year in September, according to data released Thursday by China’s National Bureau of Statistics.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 closed mildly lower at 29,098.24 while the Topix index shed 0.23% to finish the trading day at 2,013.81. South Korea’s Kospi also slipped 0.77%, closing at 3,025.49.
Shares in Australia closed higher as the S&P/ASX 200 rose fractionally to 7,448.70. Australia’s consumer price index rose 0.8% in the September 2021 quarter, data from the country’s Bureau of Statistics showed Wednesday. The reading for quarterly consumer inflation was in line with expectations from a Reuters poll.
The Australian dollar rose to $0.7506 following the data release, against an earlier low of $0.7495.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.73%.
Oil prices fall more than 1%
Oil prices were lower in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures slipping 1.44% to $85.16 per barrel. U.S. crude futures dipped 1.74% to $83.18 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 93.865 following a recent surge to levels around 94.
The Japanese yen traded at 113.72 per dollar, stronger than levels around 114.2 seen earlier against the greenback.
