Major Asia-Pacific markets dipped on Monday, with South Korean stocks hitting a pause following a stellar start to 2021.
South Korea’s Kospi, which jumped nearly 10% in the first trading week of the year, shed earlier gains seen during the session and closed 0.12% lower at 3,148.45.
Shares of automaker Hyundai Motor rose again on Monday following a local media report that the firm and Apple are set to sign a partnership deal on autonomous electric cars, according to Reuters.
Hyundai Motor shares soared 8.74% on Monday while Kia Motors also jumped 2.64%. Meanwhile, Hyundai Mobis and Hyundai Glovis fell 1.95% and 3.73%, respectively. Shares of Hyundai Motor popped more than 19% on Friday following an initial report surrounding the Apple deal.
Mainland Chinese stocks fell on the day: The Shanghai composite declined 1.08% to 3,531.50 while the Shenzhen component shed 1.331% to 15,115.38.
China’s producer price index fell 0.4% in December as compared to a year earlier, according to the country’s Bureau of Statistics. That was a smaller decline than the 0.8% fall expected in a median forecast of a Reuters poll. Meanwhile, China’s consumer price index rose 0.2% year-on-year in December, against expectations of a 0.1% increase in a Reuters poll.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was above the flatline, as of its final hour of trading. Elsewhere, the S&P/ASX 200 in Australia declined 0.9% to close at 6,697.20.
New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 index fell 1.977% on Monday to 13,290.09. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand on Sunday announced that a third party file sharing service used by the central bank to “share and store some sensitive information” was illegally accessed. The RBNZ later clarified on Monday that it was not a specific target of the cyberattack, which also affected other users of the file sharing application.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped 0.14%.
Markets in Japan were closed on Monday for a holiday.
JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will delist hundreds of Hong Kong-listed structured products, following an executive order banning U.S. investment in firms alleged by Washington to be linked to the Chinese military.
According to filings by the three investment banks to the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong, the products are related to telecommunications firms China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom as well as local indexes including the city’s benchmark Hang Seng index.
That comes after the New York Stock Exchange announced it would delist the U.S.-listed shares of those three Chinese telecommunications firms, also citing the executive order on the investment ban. Trading is set to be suspended at 4 p.m. ET Monday.
The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 90.325 after a recent rise from levels below 89.4.
The Japanese yen traded at 104.11 per dollar after weakening last week from levels below 103 against the greenback. The Australian dollar was at $0.7707 following levels above $0.78 seen last week.
Oil prices were lower in the afternoon of Asia trading hours, with international benchmark Brent crude futures down 1.3% to $55.26 per barrel. U.S. crude futures dipped 0.86% to $51.79 per barrel.
