After witnessing carnage in previous session, equity indices in the Asian region snapped the day’s trade on mixed note on Thursday after European officials said Greece would get its next tranche of bailout cash but traders were nervous as politicians in Athens struggled to form a coalition. However, bargain hunting in the fundamentally strong stocks helped certain bourses to end in the green land. Meanwhile, Hong Kong shares slumped to a sixth straight loss on Thursday after Chinese April trade data came in weaker than expected, with negligible import growth raising fears of a much bigger slowdown in domestic demand. Chinese headline growth in imports unexpectedly stalled in April, at 0.3 percent which was much lower than the 11 percent Reuters consensus, raising doubts about the strength of the rebound in the world’s second-biggest economy.
However, mainland Chinese markets ended flat after a choppy session. They were up initially, but reversed course after the mid-morning release of the trade data, which accelerated losses in Hong Kong. Japanese Nikkei ended about 0.40 percent lower at their worst finish for three months on Thursday as dealers were hit by renewed fears over Europe’s debt crisis.
Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
Shanghai Composite | 2,410.23 | 1.64 | 0.07 |
Hang Seng | 20,227.28 | -103.36 | -0.51 |
Jakarta Composite | 4,133.63 | 4.57 | 0.11 |
KLSE Composite | 1,588.06 | 3.16 | 0.20 |
Nikkei 225 | 9,009.65 | -35.41 | -0.39 |
Straits Times | 2,903.60 | 2.69 | 0.09 |
KOSPI Composite | 1,944.93 | -5.36 | -0.27 |
Taiwan Weighted | 7,484.01 | 8.30 | 0.11 |