TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares dropped early Thursday morning trading after declines on Wall Street, as the gyrations that recently slammed global markets haunted investors.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell as much as 2.4% in early morning trading, to 34,264.75. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.6% to 7,652.70. South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1.8% to 2,523.52.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dropped 1.1% to 16,694.63.
The future for the S&P 500 was down 0.2% and that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average edged 0.1% lower.
Although Wall Street slumped on Wednesday, the decline wasn’t as bad as the manic moves that earlier wracked worldwide markets. European markets logged strong gains.
Japanese officials moved Wednesday to calm concerns over potential rate hikes after an increase in its key rate contributed to the heavy selling on Monday, when the Nikkei suffered its worst percentage loss since 1987.
The Japanese yen was relatively stable after big gains in its value against the U.S. dollar that led investors to dump shares on Friday and Monday. The U.S. dollar fell to 146.37 Japanese yen from 146.72 yen. The euro cost $1.0928, little changed from $1.0927.
Investors are also paying close attention to earnings reports being released across the globe.
Honda Motor Co. and Sony Corp. both released relatively positive financial results this week. Honda’s shares jumped 1% in morning trading, while Sony gained 2.2%.
Taiwan’s trade data for July, expected later in the day, was expected to weaken but still show both export and import growth. The benchmark Taiex fell 2.5% in morning trading.
“Recent export orders data suggests that export strength will continue to be concentrated in tech-related exports; other categories continued to show mixed performance but generally, there were signs of a broader recovery across more industries in the past few months,” said Robert Carnell, regional head of research Asia-Pacific at ING. Economics.
On Wednesday, the S&P 500 slipped 0.8% after an earlier jump of 1.7% petered out, closing at 5,199.50. The Dow fell 0.6% to 38,763.45. The Nasdaq composite dropped 1% to 16,195.81.
The yield on the two-year Treasury was holding steady at 3.99% Wednesday, where it was late Tuesday.
Nvidia, one of Wall Street’s most influential companies, went from a morning gain of 4.4% to a loss of 5.1% that made it the index’s heaviest weight. Nvidia and other Big Tech stocks have been struggling on worries their prices have shot too high amid Wall Street’s frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology.
Helping to limit the losses on Wall Street was Apple, which rose 1.2%. It clawed back some of its losses from earlier in the week after Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway disclosed it had slashed its ownership stake in the iPhone maker.
The expectation on Wall Street is for the Fed to cut its main interest rate at its next scheduled meeting next month by either the traditional quarter of a percentage point or a more severe half of a point.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude added 16 cents to $75.39 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, rose 11 cents to $78.44 a barrel.
___
AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.