Asia-Pacific markets broadly lower after Wall Street sell-off
Istanbul, August 2 (Hibya) - Japan's benchmark indexes nosedived as much as 5.0 percent on Friday, with most Asia-Pacific markets lower after a sell-off on Wall Street overnight over recession worries.
The Nikkei extended its 2.62 percent slide on Thursday, leading regional losses and reaching its lowest since February. The Nikkei and Topix pared losses later in the session and last traded at 4.56 percent and 4.47 percent, respectively.
Some heavyweight stocks that fell include Softbank Group, which tumbled over 5 percent, while trading houses Mitsui and Marubeni saw losses of over 8 percent and 6 percent, respectively. Semiconductor firm Tokyo Electron was down over 9 percent. Japanese government bond yields fell, with the yield on the benchmark 10-year JGB falling below the 1 percent mark and hitting its lowest since June 20.
South Korea's Kospi tumbled 3.19 percent, dragged mostly by banking stocks, while the small-cap Kosdaq plunged 3.46 percent. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was down 2.14 percent, retreating from its all-time high on Thursday.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was 2 percent lower, while mainland China's CSI 300 saw the smallest loss in Asia, down 0.66 percent. Separately, South Korea's July inflation numbers came in slightly higher than expected, with the country's consumer price index climbing 2.6 percent year on year.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1.21 percent, the S&P 500 shed 1.37 percent, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite slipped 2.3 percent. The Russell 2000 index, the small-cap benchmark that has rallied lately, dropped 3 percent.
In the U.S., the ISM manufacturing index, a barometer of factory activity, came in at 46.8 percent, worse than expected and signalling economic contraction. After these data, the 10-year Treasury yield dropped below 4 percent for the first time since February.