Japan’s Nikkei blows past 34,000 mark for the first time in over 30 years; CSI 300 near 5-year lows

Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell Wednesday, with China’s CSI 300 closing at near 5-year lows, though Japan defied the trend to extend its 33-year high. Japan’s Nikkei 225 surged 2.01% to cross the 34,000 mark for the first time since March 1990, closing at 34,441.72. The broader based Topix also gained, climbing 1.3% to end at 2,444.48 and also hitting levels not seen in more than 30 years. Australia’s weighted consumer price index — defined as the weighted average CPI of Australia’s eight capital cities — climbed 4.3% year on year, slightly lower than the 4.4% increase expected from a Reuters poll. The S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.69% and closed at 7,468.50, after snapping its four-day losing streak on Tuesday. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.75% to end at 2,541.98 as the country’s unemployment rate hit a 23-month high, while the Kosdaq tumbled 1.04% to 875.46. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 0.49%, while the mainland China’s CSI 300 lost 0.47% to finish at 3,277.13, hitting its lowest level since Jan. 31, 2019. Overnight in the U.S., stocks largely fell. The S&P500 ended the session down 0.15%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.42%. The Nasdaq Composite managed to eke out a 0.09% gain, helped by gains in some Big Tech stocks. Nvidia rose 1.7%, reaching a fresh all-time high, while Amazon and Alphabet gained more than 1.5%. Shares of Juniper Networks also popped almost 22% on Tuesday after a report in The Wall Street Journal said Hewlett Packard Enterprise could announce a deal to acquire the networking hardware company for about $13 billion as soon as this week.