Stocks in Asia slipped on Monday morning as investors remain cautious, following global losses in the previous week.
In the Greater China region, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong fell by around 0.9 percent in early trade. The Shanghai composite also slipped by 0.33 percent while the Shenzhen composite bucked the overall trend to edge up by 0.4 percent.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell by 1.48 percent in morning trade, while the Topix index slipped by 1.17 percent, with most sectors trending lower.
Softbank also saw its stock plunging about 5.5 percent in the morning over concerns of the company’s ties to Saudi Arabia, which is under mounting pressure internationally following the disappearance of a prominent journalist who was a critic of the administration.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s Kospi also saw losses of 0.48 percent, with industry heavyweight Samsung Electronics sliding 1.02 percent.
In Australia, the benchmark ASX 200 fell 1.25 percent in morning trade as most sectors continued to trade down. The heavily weighted financial subindex fell 1.81 percent as major banking shares saw losses — Commonwealth Bank was down 2.16 percent, ANZ fell 2.01 percent, Westpac lower by 1.51 percent and the National Australia Bank declined 1.58 percent.
In the previous week, stocks sold off globally as investors fretted over rising interest rates, valuations and worries about a possible economic slowdown. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 finished the week down by more than 4 percent, while the Nasdaq Composite posted a 3.7 percent weekly loss.
Trade tensions between the U.S. and China remain a focus for investors. On Sunday, China’s central bank governor Yi Gang said the People’s Bank of China still has “plenty of monetary instruments” and “room for adjustment” with respect to countering the impact of a trade war.
On the same day, Chinese ambassador to the U.S. Cui Tiankai told “Fox News Sunday” in an interview that diplomats “don’t know who is the final decision-maker” within President Donald Trump’s White House.
Elsewhere, the U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, traded at 95.370 as of 9:52 a.m. HK/SIN, following a slide from highs above 96.0 last week.
The Japanese yen was at 112.14 against the dollar after strengthening from levels above 113.8 last week, while the Australian dollar traded at $0.7100 after seeing gains from around 0.705 in the previous week.
— CNBC’s Fred Imbert contributed to this report.
