Hong Kong and Japanese stocks closed lower on Friday, as the flare-up of hostilities between Iran and the United States, which exchanged fire near the Strait of Hormuz, sent regional markets into a retreat, according to a market analyst.
Hong Kong's benchmark Hang Seng Index fell 0.87 percent to settle at 26,393.71 points.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index lost 0.34 percent to end at 8,889.07 points, and the Hang Seng Tech Index decreased 0.36 percent to end at 5,102.79 points.
Timothy Pope, a market analyst for China Global Television Network (CGTN), noted that the Middle East flare-up weighed heavily on investor sentiment.
"The flare-up of hostilities in the Middle East sent the regional markets into retreat as well. The Hang Seng ended the session down by 0.9 percent. It actually managed to bounce back a little bit later in the afternoon, but most sectors traded lower in Hong Kong. Chinese tech firms like Kuaishou, Baidu and Xiaomi as well, they managed to keep on gaining, as did several real estate firms. But the overall trend there was down. The chip sector sell-off was hitting the Hang Seng as well. SMIC, China's biggest chipmaker, was off by around 4 percent, really dragging things," said Pope.
In Tokyo, markets returned from the Golden Week holiday with a shortened trading week. Japan's Nikkei Stock Average slipped 120.19 points, or 0.19 percent, to close at 62,713.65, giving back a portion of Thursday's historic surge.
"Over in Japan, the markets had an even shorter trading week than they did on the Chinese mainland -- just two days after the golden week holiday. Nevertheless, the Nikkei 225 really did well on Thursday, touching a record high close, at 62,833.84 [points]. That was the record on Thursday. It even crossed the 63,000-point psychological barrier at one point. And it was up 5.5 percent, so [it was] also the biggest single-day point gain in the Nikkei's history. But today, it shifted gear a little bit, shedding 0.2 percent. So actually, [it was] really a pretty mild fall when you measured against yesterday's gain. But today, chip stocks fluctuated. We saw some of the heavyweights reversing their earlier losses by the end of the day, like Advantest that had started the day down and ended the day slightly higher. But one company that didn't end the day higher was SoftBank. The tech investor was down 4.6 percent, the Nikkei's biggest loser today, after its U.S.-listed chip division, ARM, tanked on Wall Street overnight amid some worries over chip sector supplies," said Pope.
Hong Kong, Tokyo stocks decline amid flare-up of hostilities between US, Iran
