Asian markets slipped Monday as battery stock sell-offs, China-Japan tensions, and fresh U.S. tariffs rattled investor confidence, dragging Hong Kong’s Hang Seng down 0.71 percent and Japan’s Nikkei 0.1 percent, analysts said.
Hong Kong stock market ended lower on Monday with the benchmark Hang Seng Index down 0.71 percent to close at 26,384.28 points.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average, dropped 0.10 percent to end at 50,323.91points.
Timothy Pope, a market analyst for China Global Television Network (CGTN), recapped stock market performances in Hong Kong and Japan on Monday.
"Hong Kong's Hang Seng ended 0.7 percent lower. Even as we saw the EV sector gaining ground, one of the key companies that underpins that sector - the battery giant CATL - was in decline today, both in Shenzhen and in Hong Kong - it's got a dual listing. That was after one of its key shareholders, the company's billionaire vice chairman Huang Shilin, decided to unwind a 1 percent stake in the company now that pushed its Hong Kong stock down by more than 4 percent at one stage but it managed to close 3 percent lower," he said.
"Japanese stocks were off today, the diplomatic tension with China was being felt there -- tourism stocks took a hit, as did those with exposure to China like cosmetics makers. But the Nikkei 225 sank just 0.1 percent. The big losers were department stores like Mitsu-Koshi Holdings that was down 11 percent and the makeup chain Shiseido down 9 percent. The overall market was supported by dip-buying of the big chip sector firms like Tokyo Electron and some data center tech providers which been coming down a little bit," said Pope.
"We also saw the latest Japanese economic data out today that showed the impact of U.S. tariffs. The economy contracted for the first time in six quarters in Q3, shrinking 1.8 percent year on year. Although the markets had priced in a predicted decline of 2.5 percent. So that really did limit the market impact of that data. Obviously Japan is an export heavy economy, so tariffs were always going to be a big deal. And we've seen that with car shipments to the U.S. in particular going off a cliff after the automakers' moves to front load a lot of those shipments earlier in the year before the tariffs came into full effect," he added.
Hong Kong, Japanese stocks slip amid battery sell-off, trade tensions: analyst
