SINGAPORE: Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index has been left 5 per cent lower after a week of volatile trading in Chinese markets.
After diving earlier this week and making a partial recovery, both the Hong Kong and mainland-listed stocks further fell by the end of the Friday session. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index closed about 1.4 per cent lower at 25,961.03.
Mainland-listed stocks tumbled. Shanghai composite declined by 0.42 per cent to 3,397.36, while the CSI 300 fell by 0.81 per cent to 4,811.17, and the Shenzhen component was down by 0.29 per cent 14,473.21.
Tech stocks also fell. Tencent was down by 2.6 per cent, Meituan dived nearly 6 per cent, whereas Alibaba declined by 4 per cent.
However, the yuan made a strong recovery after selling off this week. On Friday evening, the offshore yuan was at 6.4624, after weakening to around 6.52 levels earlier this week.
Meanwhile, Japan leads losses in other Asia-Pacific markets. Japan’s Nikkei dipped by 1.8 per cent to close at 27,283, while Topix lost 1.37 per cent to 1,901.08.
According to a report by Reuters, Japanese industrial output increased by 6.2 per cent in the previous month of June, recovering sharply from a 6.5 per cent drop in May.
South Korea’s Kospi was down around 1.24% to close at 3,202.32.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed at 0.33 per cent, down to 7,392.60. Meanwhile, National Australia Bank’s stock gained 0.62 per cent.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares lost around 1 per cent outside Japan.
Even though data of Thursday’s regular sessions showed U.S. second-quarter GDP rose by 6.5 per cent on an annualized basis, Dow Jones estimated that the percentage is considerably more than the 8.4 per cent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained about 150 points on Thursday. The S&P 500 finished the day up 0.4% at 4,419.15, after briefly touching an all-time high.
