Asian stock markets mixed after Wall St fell
FILE – Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, May 19, 2022. Stocks open lower on Wall Street on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, led by declines in tech heavyweights like the parent companies of Facebook and Google. The S&P 500 index fell 1.2% early on, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq fell nearly twice as much, 2.3%. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
PA
BEIJING
Asian stock markets were mixed on Wednesday after Wall Street sank on weak U.S. home sales and a profit warning from a top social media brand.
Shanghai and Seoul advanced while Tokyo and Hong Kong declined. Oil prices rose more than $1 a barrel to stay above $110.
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index lost 0.8% after Snapchat’s parent company’s earnings warning on Tuesday prompted investors to dump shares off social media. Construction inventories tumbled after U.S. home sales tumbled in April.
“The overall mood in stock markets remains largely pessimistic,” IG’s Jun Rong Yeap said in a report.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.1% to 3,074.51 while the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo lost 0.1% to 26,713.08. The Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell less than 0.1% to 20,093.33.
Seoul’s Kospi rose 0.7% to 2,623.41 and Sydney’s S&P-ASX 200 gained 0.6% to 7,173.30. New Zealand and Jakarta fell while Singapore advanced.
Investors are nervous about the impact of interest rate hikes in the United States and other Western economies to curb soaring inflation, as well as Russia’s war on Ukraine and to the Chinese economic slowdown.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is due to provide insight into its decision-making by releasing minutes from its latest policy meeting.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell to 3,941.48. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.2% to 31,928.62.
The S&P is down 18% from its peak on Jan. 3, putting it on the verge of a bear market, down 20% from the previous peak.
The Nasdaq composite, dominated by tech stocks, fell 2.3% to 11,264.45 after the social media selloff. Snap fell 43.1%, its biggest one-day drop on record. Facebook’s parent company, Meta, fell 7.6%. Google’s parent company fell 5.1%.
Retailers and businesses that depend on direct consumer spending have shrunk. Amazon slipped 3.2% and Target fell 2.6%.
The pullback undermined the broad rally the day before.
Homebuilders fell following a government report showing that in April, sales of newly built homes fell 26.9% from a year earlier. KB Home fell 2.7%.
Cruise lines and other travel-related businesses suffered heavy losses. Carnival fell 10.3% and Norwegian Cruise Line 12%.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude rose $1.28 to $111.05 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell 52 cents on Tuesday to $109.77. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trade, advanced $1.19 to $111.88 a barrel in London. It was up 14 cents the previous session at $113.56.
The dollar gained 127.05 yen from 126.82 yen on Tuesday. The euro fell from $1.0693 to $1.0725.
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