Most of the Asian markets are trading in red in early deals on Wednesday on the specter of a Sino-US trade war ahead of an end-of-week deadline for US tariffs on $34 billion worth of Chinese imports while the yuan stabilized after China's central bank moved to calm nervous investors. Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei slipped as technology shares were hit by a slide in US chip makers and sluggish sales weighed on index heavyweight Fast Retailing. Among the other Asian markets, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Shanghai and South Korea are lower. Bucking the trend, Malaysia, and Indonesia are in positive territory.
Nikkei 225 declined 80.51 points or 0.37% to 21,705.03, Hang Seng dipped 306.46 points or 1.09% to 28,239.11, Straits Times dropped 4.27 points or 0.13% to 3,231.63, Taiwan Weighted slipped 20.98 points or 0.20% to 10,694.74, KOSPI Index contracted 6.88 points or 0.30% to 2,265.88, and Shanghai Composite down by 18.98 points or 0.69% to 2,767.91,
On the flip side, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI added 4.43 points or 0.26% to 1,684.80, and Jakarta Composite up by 5.24 points or 0.09% to 5,639.18.
