Asian stocks were widely lower in early trading Monday, extending last week’s selling. President Donald Trump’s comments Saturday urging Apple Inc. AAPL, -0.81% to move its manufacturing to the U.S. helped pressure Asian tech stocks. The region is home to many of the tech giant’s key suppliers, especially in China and Taiwan. Indexes in both were down around 1%.
Read: Trump urges Apple to move manufacturing to the U.S.
After an initial 0.3% decline, the Nikkei NIK, +0.03% was last trading nearly flat, helped by electronics and machinery stocks amid Friday’s gains in the dollar. The Nikkei is trying to snap a six-session losing streak. Sony 6758, +0.61% climbed 0.6% while Fanuc 6954, +1.23% and Omron 6645, +1.18% rose more than 1%. Of the 33 Topix subindexes, 20 were up. Banks and insurers were being helped by the end-of-week rise in Treasury yields after the strong U.S. jobs report.
Hong Kong stocks slid along with their mainland counterparts as recent weakness continued. The Hang Seng Index HSI, -1.00% set another 13-month closing low on Friday, and it was last off 1.1%. Macau casinos and Chinese developers remained under pressure amid continued caution regarding U.S.-China trade; the countries’ trade gap hit another record in August. Tencent 0700, -0.57% surrendered early gains after undertaking its first stock buyback in four years.
On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, -0.55% was down 0.8% while the smaller-cap Shenzhen Composite 399106, -0.91% was off 1.2%.
Korea’s Kospi SEU, +0.18% rose 0.1% as beaten-down chip companies Samsung 005930, +0.78% and SK Hynix 000660, +0.79% climbed amid the Trump-Apple comments. But Taiwan’s Taiex Y9999, -0.84% sank after those same comments, with Apple suppliers such as Foxconn 2354, -1.33% and Largan Precision 3008, -5.18% tumbling.
Australia’s ASX 200 XJO, +0.11% recovered from earlier losses, and was around even, while stocks in New Zealand NZ50GR, -0.47% fell. Benchmarks in Singapore STI, -0.41% , Malaysia FBMKLCI, +0.03% and Indonesia JAKIDX, +1.30% all dropped.
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