Asian markets end mostly lower on Thursday

01 Aug 2019 Evaluate

Asian markets ended mostly lower on Thursday as Fed Chairman Jerome Powell dampened hopes of further rate cuts later this year and top American and Chinese negotiators finished talks with little progress toward ending a trade war. Chinese shares closed down as a private survey showed Chinese factory activity contracted in July and China's central bank kept its main policy rates on hold. The People's Bank of China refrained from daily open market operations, saying that banking system liquidity was ‘reasonably ample’. Further, Seoul shares ended lower as relations between Japan and South Korea appear to be at a stalemate over export restrictions. Meanwhile, Japanese shares ended little changed with a positive bias as investors awaited manufacturing and employment data from the US for additional cues about future rate cuts. The manufacturing sector in Japan continued to contract, albeit at a slightly slower rate, the latest survey from Jibon revealed with a manufacturing PMI score of 49.4. That's up fractionally from 49.3 in June.

Asian Indices

Last Trade           

Change in Points

Change in %

Shanghai Composite

2,908.77
-23.74
-0.81

Hang Seng

27,565.70
-212.05
-0.76

Jakarta Composite

6,381.54
-8.97
-0.14

KLSE Composite

1,639.07

4.20

0.26

Nikkei 225

21,540.99
19.46
0.09

Straits Times

3,291.75
-9.00
-0.27

KOSPI Composite

2,017.34
-7.21
-0.36

Taiwan Weighted

10,731.75
-92.06
-0.85

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