Asian markets were mixed on Monday despite the strong showing on Wall Street as investors digested last week’s trade talks and U.S. jobs numbers.
In Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 came under pressure in morning trade, with the index slipping 0.45 percent. The Topix traded lower by 0.32 percent as gains in the mining and oil subindexes were offset by losses in the financial and technology sectors.
Over in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index hovered around the flat line, last trading higher by 0.05 percent. Moderate losses in financials, property and tech, the three most heavily weighted sectors on the index, outweighed gains seen in energy names.
On the mainland, the Shanghai composite edged up by 0.32 percent and the smaller Shenzhen composite eased 0.63 percent.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 tacked on 0.48 percent amid broad-based gains, with energy and materials names climbing. The heavily weighted financials sector was up 0.29 percent.
MSCI’s broad index of shares in Asia Pacific, meanwhile, was mostly flat, eking out gains of 0.02 percent.
Markets in South Korea, meanwhile, were closed on Monday for a holiday.
The mixed performance in morning trade came after U.S. stocks notched strong gains on Friday despite a mixed jobs report, with Apple getting a boost following news that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway had bought 75 million shares in the tech company in the first quarter.
Investors also digested the release of April nonfarm payrolls, which rose by 164,000. That was below the 192,000 figure forecast by economists in a Reuters poll. Average hourly earnings growth was 0.1 percent, missing expectations, but U.S. unemployment dropped to an 18-year low of 3.9 percent.
Markets in Asia had closed in negative territory in the last session amid concerns over U.S.-China trade talks, which the two countries agreed to continue after the end of a two-day meeting last week.
“Global risk appetite may continue to part ways amid a stalemate in the U.S.-China trade talks,” OCBC Bank said in a morning note.
The dollar gave back some of its recent gains after finishing last week broadly higher. The dollar index, which tracks the dollar against six currencies, traded at 92.466 at 9:39 a.m. HK/SIN.
Emerging market currencies took a beating last week on the back of recent strength in the greenback, with the Argentinean peso falling more than 6 percent last week.
Against the safe-haven yen, the dollar slipped to trade at 108.85, compared to the 109 handle seen through most of last week.
On the commodities front, oil prices were stable after settling about 2 percent higher in the last session, with markets focused on the possibility of the U.S. re-imposing sanctions against Iran.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude edged up 0.17 percent to $69.84 per barrel after rising as high as $69.97 for the first time since end-2014 on Friday, Reuters said. Brent crude futures, meanwhile, added 0.09 percent to trade at $74.94.
On the corporate front, Singapore’s second-largest bank by total assets, OCBC, reported net profit after tax for the first quarter rose 29 percent to 1.11 billion Singapore dollars ($833 million), missing an average Thomson Reuters forecast of S$1.18 billion. Shares declined 2.2 percent.
Elsewhere, Australia’s Westpac announced Monday that its first-half cash earnings rose 6 percent to 4.2 billion Australian dollars ($3.2 billion), above the A$4.17 billion forecast in a Reuters poll. Westpac shares were up 1.44 percent in morning trade.
