TOKYO -- Asian stocks were trading mostly lower on Wednesday after an overnight drop on Wall Street, while Tokyo's main benchmark index momentarily hit another 30-year high.
US stocks were expected to fall with Dow futures falling 0.3% to 37,429.00. Yes&P 500 futures fell 0.5% to 4,775.25.
Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 index gave up earlier gains due to profit-taking and ended down 0.4% at 35,477.75. Earlier in the day, the Nikkei hit a new 34-year high, or the best since February 1990, during the so-called financial โbubble.โ Buying had focused on semiconductor-related stocks and a cheap yen helped fuel some exporters' woes.
S from Australia&The P/ASX 200 fell 0.3% to 7,393.10. South Korea's Kospi fell 2.3% to 2,439.93. Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 3.8% to 15,267.70. The Shanghai Composite lost 1.5% to 2,851.78.
Official Chinese data released on Wednesday showed the Chinese economy grew 5.2% by 2023, exceeding the government's target of โaround 5%.โ That growth was likely aided by GDP of just 3% in 2022 as China's economy slowed due to COVID-19 and nationwide lockdowns during the pandemic.
"Investor expectations for China's economic growth have diminished," said Stephen Innes, managing partner at SPI Asset Management. "The headwinds China's economy will face in 2023 have not abated and the geopolitical environment may become more contentious."
Investors were watching upcoming earnings reports, as well as possible actions by the world's central banks, to assess their next moves.
Companies from all over the S&The P 500 is likely to post meager fourth-quarter earnings growth from a year ago, if any, if Wall Street analysts' forecasts are to be believed. Profits have been under pressure for more than a year due to rising costs amid high inflation.
But optimism is higher for 2024, where analysts forecast strong 11.8% growth in earnings per share for S.&P 500 companies, according to FactSet. That, plus expectations of several interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve this year, have helped the S.&The P 500 has accumulated 10 winning weeks in the last 11. The index remains within 0.6% of its historical maximum established two years ago.
For now, traders are projecting far more rate cuts through 2024 than the Federal Reserve itself has indicated. That raises the potential for big market swings around each Fed official's speech or economic report.
In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude lost 56 cents to $71.84 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 51 cents to $77.78 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 147.86 Japanese yen from 147.09 yen. The euro was worth $1.0859, down from $1.0880.
___
AP Business Writer Stan Choe in New York contributed to this report.
___
Follow Yuri Kageyama on X: https://twitter.com/yurikageyama
