The indicators of the Asia-Pacific region show mainly a decline in today's trading. Only Chinese indicators show a slight increase: Shanghai Composite rose by 0.17%, and Shenzhen Composite – by 0.46%. At this time, other indicators in the region are falling: Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell by 1.31%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 – by 1.53%. The Japanese Nikkei 225 decreased by about the same amount (by 1.58%), and the Korean KOSPI showed a slightly smaller decrease (by 0.89%).
Asian indices, as before, follow the movement of US ones. The main US stock indexes showed a drop of 1-3% yesterday after the release of data on a decrease in the rate of inflation in the country. Thus, the rate of price growth decreased to 8.3% from the March level of 8.5%, although this indicator exceeded the expectations of experts who predicted a decline to 8.1%.
The decrease in the rate of inflation growth gives hope that its peak mark has already been passed. However, it is too early to relax: despite the fact that the indicator is declining, it is still at a fairly high level. And at the same time, such high figures are quite stable.
The index concerning the service sector in Japan increased last month by 2.6 points relative to the March indicator, to 47.8 points, which was a record for the last four months. At the same time, the improvement of this indicator was recorded for the second consecutive month.
The value of SoftBank Group's securities decreased by 7.9%, and that of another large company, Fast Retailing, by 4.9%. The value of Nissan Motor securities increased by 1.3%, and Honda Motor Co. – by 0.15%.
Due to receiving a quarterly loss and despite a 13% increase in revenue, the stock quotes of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. decreased by 3.5%.
Thanks to the announcement of Sony's launch of a program to repurchase its securities totaling 200 billion yen, the value of its shares increased by 1.1%.
Among the companies that make up the Hang Seng Index, shares lost more than others in price JD.com Inc., down 7.7%, Country Garden Holdings Co., Ltd., down 7.6%, and AAC Technologies Holdings Inc., down 6%. The decline was also demonstrated by the value of securities of Alibaba Group Holding, Ltd., which decreased by 5.9%, and Xiaomi Corp., which lost 5.3%.
Among the components of the KOSPI index, Samsung Electronics Co. and Hyundai Motor were marked by a drop in stock prices, losing 0.8% each.
Among the companies on the basis of which the S&P/ASX 200 index is calculated, the largest declines were noted by BHP with shares losing 1.7%, as well as Rio Tinto, which fell by 2.1%.