Asia markets were lower in morning trade on Friday as Wall Street ended its four-day winning streak in the last session, following a report that U.S. President Donald Trump voiced his support for moving forward with more proposed tariffs.
The Nikkei 225 recovered from some of its earlier losses but still traded down by 0.11 percent in the morning as most sectors slipped. South Korea’s Kospi was steady as industry heavyweight Samsung Electronics gained by around 0.1 percent.
Down Under, the ASX 200 shed 0.17 percent, with the telecommunications sector declining by 3.66 percent, giving up gains from a day earlier which were led by a proposed merger between TPG Telecom and Hutchison Telecommunications (Australia).
Over in the Greater China region, markets continued their downtrend from the past few days. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down by roughly 1.3 percent in early hours trade. The Shanghai composite slid by 0.58 percent while the Shenzhen composite fell by around 0.84 percent.
On Thursday, Wall Street ended a four-day winning streak. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 137.65 points to 25,986.92. The S&P 500 declined by 0.4 percent to 2,901.13 while the Nasdaq Composite slid by 0.3 percent to 8,088.36 after reaching a record high a day earlier.
The moves stateside came after a Bloomberg News report that Trump said to his aides that he supports going ahead with the imposition of proposed tariffs on an additional $200 billion in Chinese goods. The report did, however, also mention that Trump has not made up his mind on the matter. The White House declined to comment on the report.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, was at 94.667 as of 9:46 a.m. HK/SIN after reaching lows around the 94.52 handle earlier in the week.
The Japanese yen was largely flat against the dollar at 110.98 while the Australian dollar was at $0.7260 as of 9:47 a.m. HK/SIN.
Oil prices recovered from their earlier losses to trade largely flat in Asia’s morning trade, after rising to their highest in more than a month on Thursday. Global benchmark Brent crude oil was at $77.72 a barrel while U.S. crude was at $70.25 a barrel.
– CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.
