TOKYO — Asian shares traded mostly lower Thursday after a quiet day on Wall Street, where the S&P 500 added to its record.
Worries about U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff policies remain high on regional investors’ minds.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dropped 1.5% in morning trading to 38,579.71. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 1.4% to 8,297.60, while South Korea’s Kospi lost nearly 0.5% to 2,659.22.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng dipped 1.6% to 22,569.12, after China left its benchmark interest rate unchanged, in a move it said was meant to maintain financial stability. The Shanghai Composite shed 0.2% to 3,345.52.
“The yuan has been under siege, with foreign-exchange outflows surging last month as Trump’s tariff rhetoric sent shockwaves through markets,” said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 rose 0.2% after setting an . The Dow Jones Industrial Average picked up 71 points, or 0.2%, while the Nasdaq composite inched up by 0.1%.
Microsoft was the strongest force pushing the S&P 500 upward. It rose 1.3% after saying it had developed what it calls the world’s first “quantum processing unit,” which could lead to the development of much more powerful computers. While the gain was relatively modest, Microsoft’s gargantuan size gives its stock’s movements huge sway on the S&P 500 and other indexes.
Elon Musk’s Tesla rose 1.8%. It climbed after another electric-vehicle company, Nikola, plunged 39.1% following its filing . The electric truck maker said it will try to sell off its assets and wind down its business.
A separate report Wednesday said homebuilders as a group broke ground on fewer U.S. houses last month than economists expected.
are making it difficult for some potential homebuyers to afford a house, even though the Federal Reserve in order to make things easier for the economy.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury eased a bit Wednesday and edged down to 4.53% from 4.55% late Tuesday. It was below 3.70% as recently as September and approaching 4.80% within the past few weeks.
Both the bond and the stock markets have increasingly been taking Trump’s tariffs in stride, after earlier showing . The hope on Wall Street is that Trump is using such threats , and the ultimate effects won’t be as bad as they initially appeared.
All told, the S&P 500 added 14.57 points to finish at 6,144.15. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 71.25 to 44,627.59, and the Nasdaq composite gained 14.99 to 20,056.25.
In energy trading in Asia Thursday, benchmark U.S. crude fell 32 cents to $71.93 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, lost 21 cents to $75.83 a barrel.
In currency trading, the U.S. dollar slipped to 150.60 Japanese yen from 151.37 yen. The euro cost $1.0432, up from $1.0428.
___
AP Business Writer Stan Choe in New York contributed.
The post Stock market today: Asian shares mostly dip despite S&P 500 adding to its record on Wall Street appeared first on Associated Press.
