Shares in Asia-Pacific were mixed on Wednesday following losses on Wall Street with the S&P 500 ending its seven-day winning streak.
Chinese electric carmaker Xpeng made its debut in Hong Kong on Wednesday. Shares ended the trading day unchanged after rising nearly 2% in the early moments of trading.
The broader Hang Seng index in the city slipped 0.4% to close at 27,960.62.
Mainland Chinese stocks closed higher, with the Shanghai composite rising 0.66% to 3,553.72 while the Shenzhen component advanced 1.857% to 14,940.05.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 dropped 0.96% to close at 28,366.95 while the Topix index declined 0.86% to end the trading day at 1,937.68. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.6% on the day to 3,285.34.
Over in Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 closed 0.9% higher at 7,326.90 while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.17%.
Asian Markets Oil and Currencies
Oil prices were higher in the afternoon of trading hours following a plunge overnight, with international benchmark Brent crude futures rising 0.93% to $75.22 per barrel. U.S. crude futures advanced 1.14% to $74.21 per barrel.
Crude prices were volatile overnight. After jumping to the highest in six years, gains were wiped out, with U.S. crude losing more than 2%, while Brent tumbled more than 3%. Those swings followed an indefinite postponement of talks between OPEC and its oil-producing allies after the group failed to reach an agreement on its output policy for August and beyond.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 92.486 following a recent bounce from below 92.1.
The Japanese yen traded at 110.65 per dollar, stronger than levels above 110.8 seen against the greenback earlier this week. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7514, lower than levels above $0.756 seen yesterday.
