Workers at the construction site of resettlement housing in Huai ‘an city, Jiangsu province, China, June 17, 2024.
Cfoto | Future Publishing | Getty Images
SINGAPORE — Most Asia-Pacific markets fell Thursday after China’s housing ministry briefing failed to impress investors, and sent the country’s property stocks plummeting.
The CSI 300 real estate index — which had gained over 5% on Wednesday — fell nearly 8%, while the benchmark CSI 300 declined 1.13% to 3,788.22.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 1.3% at 20,030 as of its final hour of trade following a number of policy announcements from its chief executive on Wednesday. The Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index dropped 6.6%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.69% to close at 38,911.19, while the broad-based Topix was down 0.11% to end at 2,687.83 after investors assessed trade data out of Japan.
Japan’s exports fell 1.7% in September compared to the same period last year, surprising economists polled by Reuters who had expected a 0.5% growth. Exports, which contracted for the first time this year, were down sharply from a revised growth rate of 5.5% in August.
September’s import growth came in at 2.1% also missing expectations of economists who expected growth of 3.2%. The figure was down from August’s growth of 2.3%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.86% to end trading at 8,355.9.
Australia’s unemployment rate for September came in at 4.1%, slightly down from a Reuters poll that expected it to remain unchanged from August at 4.2%.
Australia’s labor participation rate slightly increased to 67.2% in September, up 0.1 percentage point from August as well as forecasts.
South Korea’s Kospi ended marginally lower at 2,609.30, while the small-cap Kosdaq slipped 0.1% to 765.79.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reported earnings on Thursday after Taiwan markets closed. Taiex gained 0.19% to end the day at 23,053.84.
Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones gained 337.28 points, or 0.79%, to ended at 43,077.70.
The S&P 500 added 0.47% to 5,842.47, while the Nasdaq Composite jumped 0.28% to close at 18,367.08.
— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.