A screen displays the Nikkei 225 Stock Average figure on the trading floor at the Nomura Securities Co. headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, on Jan. 11, 2024.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets mostly climbed higher on Tuesday, even as U.S. Big Tech stocks sold off in favor of other sectors such as banking and energy.
Tech darling Nvidia dropped 6.68% on Monday and was one of the biggest contributors to the Nasdaq’s losses. Information technology was the S&P 500’s biggest declining sector for the day, falling more than 2%.
The Taiwan Weighted Index led losses in the region, dropping 1.2%, with heavyweights Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, Hon Hai Precision Industry and semiconductor firm MediaTek slipping 1.38%, 1.70% and 2.13% respectively.
Investors in Asia will assess South Korea’s consumer sentiment index for June, as well as Japan’s service sector producer prices.
The services producer price index for Japan grew 2.5% year-on-year in May, a slowdown from the 2.7% increase in April.
Consumer confidence in South Korea increased in June, with the index rising to 100.9, as compared to 98.4 in May. This comes amid growing optimism on current living standards and future household income, as well as domestic economic conditions.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.3% while the broad-based Topix increased 1.22%. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.32% while the small-cap Kosdaq reversed gains to a 0.32% drop.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index was up 0.3% while mainland China’s CSI 300 increased marginally.
Reuters reported the Biden administration is probing three Chinese telecommunications firms over worries that Beijing could access American data through these firms’ cloud and internet businesses in the U.S.
All three firms named in the Reuters report – China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom – gained in early trade.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.82% on Tuesday.
