SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Tuesday trade, as the Chinese markets led losses regionally.
The Shenzhen component in mainland China plunged 2.771% by the afternoon, while the Shanghai composite shed 0.9%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index also fell 1.54%, as Chinese tech stocks in the city dropped: Alibaba plunged 3.48% and Tencent declined 1.63% while Meituan slipped 4.07%. The Hang Seng Tech index shed 2.28%.
Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.2% while the Topix index climbed 0.38%.
South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.84%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 climbed 1.07%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slipped 0.12%.
Global markets have continued to see a wave of volatility as investors continue to assess the outlook for factors such as central bank policy normalization, with expectations that fast-rising wages in the U.S. could lead the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates even higher this year.
“For now at least, inflation and related central bank thinking remains by far the bigger influence on market sentiment,” Ray Attrill, head of foreign exchange strategy at National Australia Bank, wrote in a Tuesday note.
Overnight on Wall Street, the Nasdaq Composite led losses overnight among the major indexes stateside, falling 0.58% to 14,015.67.
The S&P 500 also declined 0.37% to 4,483.87 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed just 1.39 points to 35,091.13.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 95.517 — off levels around 95.2 seen late last week.
The Japanese yen traded at 115.35 per dollar, weakening after trading close to 115 against the greenback earlier. The Australian dollar was at $0.7135 after yesterday’s climb from below $0.708.
Oil prices were lower in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 0.17% to $92.53 per barrel. U.S. crude futures dipped 0.05% to $91.27 per barrel.