Shares in the Asia-Pacific opened in the red on Wednesday following the overnight selloff in the U.S. Wall Street, and as investors digest China’s factory activity data.
As of 9.40 a.m. Thai time, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.47%, and the Shanghai Composite in mainland China dipped 1.02%.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan dropped 0.55%, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.20%.
In South Korea, the Kospi was 0.37% lower.
The official Chinese manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index for August came in at 49.4, which was somewhat higher than expected. The PMI for services was at 52.6.
In spite of being the second consecutive monthly decline, the figure is better than the 49.2 predicted by analysts in a Reuters poll.
Meanwhile, industrial production in Japan surprisingly increased by 1% in July compared to the previous month, according to official data on Wednesday.
Following June’s 9.2% surge in factory output as China lifted Covid limits, the most recent data surpassed expectations of a 0.5% drop among economists polled by Reuters.
Major market indices on Wall Street slid for a third straight session overnight.
The S&P 500 lost 1.1%, closing at 3,986.16, marking the first day since July that it has been below the 4,000 mark. Both the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq Composite ended the day down, with the latter falling 1.1% to 11,883.14 and the former down 308.12 points, or about 1%, to 31,790.87.
