A tech selloff on Wall Street on Wednesday shook more than just U.S. indexes; Asian markets were broadly lower on Thursday as well, with only the Shanghai Composite trading higher, and South Korea’s Kospi trading flat. Australia’s ASX 200 was the hardest hit, plunging 1.19 percent as of 1:03 p.m. HK/SIN. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.28 percent, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.64 percent and the Shenzhen Composite was down 0.31 percent. On Wednesday that Nasdaq Composite saw its worst day in over two weeks, and the S&P also closed lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to eke out some gains to close higher for the day.
Investors continued to worry about the Sino-U.S. trade war as today’s deadline looms for the public comment period on the Trump administration’s plan to impose tariffs on an additional $200 billion of Chinese imports. On Wednesday President Trump commented that his administration is not ready to sign an agreement about the trade disputes but that talks with China would press on.
Currency Market Movements
The currency markets continued to face pressure from the selloff of emerging market currencies. This week several countries faced harsh selloffs, sending ripples of fear and concerns about contagion through other emerging market currencies. Regions that do business with emerging markets were also under scrutiny. Among those hit the hardest were the Indonesian rupiah, the Indian rupee, the Turkish lira and the Argentine peso.
The euro was unchanged against the dollar just after noon in Asia, while the dollar declined 0.16 percent against the yen to trade at 111.34. The greenback posted modest gainst against the Canadian dollar, trading 0.04 percent higher to 1.3178.