Asia-Pacific stocks were mixed on Friday, the last trading day of the quarter.
The second quarter was up and down for the region, but stocks Down Under emerged as stars with June’s outperformance, allowing New Zealand’s benchmark NZ50GR, +0.04% to log a series of record closing highs and Australia’s key index XJO, +0.03% to hit levels last seen at the start of 2008. Both were up 0.2% Friday morning.
South Korea’s Kospi SEU, +0.06% sank after early gains as it looked to end a three-day losing streak after notching a 13-month closing low Thursday. Samsung Electronics 005930, +0.43% fell, though other tech companies gained.
Japan’s Nikkei NIK, -0.34% gave up an initial 0.2% advance, and was last down 0.3%, as it tried to avoid logging a fourth monthly drop out of the past five. The transportation and oil sectors were faring the worst, with Japan Petroleum Exploration 1662, -2.42% and Inpex 1605, -2.17% each down more than 2%. Sharp Corp. 6753, +14.63% skyrocketed after the company dropped a plan to issue as much as $2 billion in new shares.
In China, the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +1.20% rose after four days of losses, as did Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, +1.12% .
Markets in Taiwan Y9999, +1.18% and Singapore STI, +0.37% rose as well.
