Asia markets were subdued in mid-morning trade, with investors watching how U.S.-China trade talks progress on Friday.
Greater China markets were mostly down. The Shanghai Composite edged down 0.08 percent in the morning, while the Hang Seng Index declined 0.62 percent amid broad-based losses with financials leading the decline. The Shenzhen Composite inched higher by 0.06 percent.
The ASX 200 was down 0.4 percent in morning trade, with losses seen in the heavily weighted financials subindex.
The Kospi fell 0.67 percent with declines seen in the autos and tech sectors. Index heavyweight Samsung Electronics, which resumed trade on Friday after a halt, lost 1.7 percent.
Japan markets are closed on Friday for a holiday.
The Dow Jones industrial average carved out gains of 5.17 points to close at 23930.15, while the other major U.S. indexes closed down moderately.
On U.S.-China trade talks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said on Friday — the second and likely final day of the talks — that “very good conversations” have been taking place.
The discussions, led by Mnuchin and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He, are expected to cover a wide range of U.S. complaints about China’s trade practices, from accusations of forced technology transfers to state subsidies for technology development.
However, a breakthrough deal is viewed as highly unlikely.
“Substantive progress on IP protections and cutting the US goods/trade deficit with China by a fixed amount seem some way off, or unlikely,” ANZ analysts said in a note.
Ahead, markets will watch U.S. jobs data due during U.S. hours, with the April report likely to underscore labor market strength.
Wall Street also eyed Washington amid more news regarding Trump’s legal troubles. In an interview, Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, said the president repaid his personal lawyer Michael Cohen for a hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
In corporate news, HSBC is due to report its first quarter earnings later on Friday. In Australia, Macquarie Group announced its full year results, with full year net profit at $2.56 billion Australian dollars ($1.92 billion). Its shares were up 1.88 percent in early morning trade.
In its debut in Hong Kong, shares of Ping An Group’s Good Doctor online health care platform were up 1.7 percent from its issue price. It had raised $1.12 billion after pricing its public offering at HK$54.80 a share.
In currencies, the dollar traded at 109.01 against the yen at 10:01 a.m. HK/SIN, which was slightly below Thursday’s session low of 109.14. The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, last traded at 92.382 — below a four-month high hit earlier this week.
Oil prices rose slightly after gains seen in the last session, when investors were focused on the possibility of the U.S. imposing sanctions against Iran.
Brent crude futures rose 0.23 percent to trade at $73.79 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.16 percent to trade at $68.53 a barrel.
This is the economic calendar for Friday (All times in HK/SIN) :
- 12:00 p.m.: Malaysia trade data
— CNBC’s Fred Imbert and Thomas Franck and Reuters contributed to this report.
