A pedestrian jogs along the Bund across from buildings in Pudong’s Lujiazui Financial District in Shanghai, China, on Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets traded mostly lower Wednesday after Wall Street declined overnight as investors assessed quarterly earnings, while tariff worries continued to weigh on investor sentiment.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.71%. Mainland China’s CSI 300 added 0.31% to close at 3,772.82. after China’s economy expanded by a better-than-expected 5.4% in the first quarter, even as U.S. tariff threats have prompted major investment banks to slash the country’s annual growth outlook. Reuters’ economists had expected a 5.1% expansion year on year.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 1.01% to close at 33,920.4. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.21% to close at 2,447.43 while the small-cap Kosdaq lost 1.80% to end the trading day at 699.11.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 closed the trading day at 7,758.9.
UBS recently downgraded its GDP forecast for China to 3.4% for 2025, and to 3% next year. The investment bank’s chief China economist, Tao Wang, estimates that tariff hikes imposed by the U.S. on Chinese goods will cause a more than 2 percentage points drag on China’s GDP growth.
Bloomberg on Tuesday reported that China had ordered all airlines to halt deliveries of Boeing jets amid a tit-for-tat tariff war with the U.S. This move could increase chances of a negotiation, according to Louis Navellier, founder and chairman of Navellier & Associates.
“The probability of a resolution of the trade spat between China and the U.S. is now expected since Boeing and the technology industry are likely putting pressure on the White House,” said Navellier.
U.S. stock futures slipped as investors looked ahead to the release of a key retail sales report and more earnings from the first-quarter season. Dow Jones Industrial Average futures dropped 139 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq 100 futures dipped 0.7% and 1.1%, respectively.
Overnight in the U.S., the three major averages fell. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 155.83 points, or 0.38%, to close at 40,368.96. The S&P 500 declined 0.17% and ended at 5,396.63. The Nasdaq Composite ticked down 0.05% and settled at 16,823.17. The three averages slipped following back-to-back winning sessions.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring and Lisa Kailai Han contributed to this report.