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| Asian shares with Tokyo shut, Sydney down after trade, retail data |
Asian shares drifted weaker on Thursday as Tokyo remained shut and trade and retail data out of Sydney was mixed.
The S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.25%, while the Nikkei 225 remained shut for a public holiday in Japan.
In Australia, the trade balance for March came in at a deficit of A$2.163 billion, compared with a deficit of A$2.9 billion seen. Data on the trend in imports showed a 1% gain and exports rose 4%.
Retail sales in Australia rose 0.4% in March month-on-month, and at a 0.5% quarter-on-quarter pace, a bit below expectations.
Earlier, in Australia, the HIA new homes sales figures for March month-on-month jumped 8.9% from a previous a fall of 5.3%.
The Shanghai Composite Index eased 0.19%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was last down 0.41%.
In China, the Caixin services PMI for April came in at 51.8, compared with a 52.6 level expected.
The yuan fell against the dollar on Thursday after the People's Bank of China set the fixing weaker for a second consecutive day at 6.5128 compared with 6.4943 previously.
Overnight, U.S. stocks fell sharply on Wednesday extending losses from the previous session amid a wave of mixed data and reports that Republican presidential candidate John Kasich is suspending his campaign, paving the way for frontrunner Donald Trump to win the GOP nomination.
The major indices remained under pressure in Wednesday's session, amid renewed concerns that a global economic slowdown is on the verge of resurfacing. Although the dollar bounced off near 9-month lows from the prior session, further gains were softened by relatively weak employment figures ahead of a critical jobs report from the Labor Department at week's end. In a monthly report, the ADP Research Institute said private payrolls rose by 156,000 in April, sharply below consensus estimates of 193,000. Over the first three months of the year, the labor market has added an average of 202,000 private jobs per month.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 99.65 or 0.56% to 17,651.26, while the NASDAQ Composite index lost 37.58 or 0.79% to 4,725.64 on a bearish day for Wall Street. The NASDAQ closed lower for the second straight day after halting a 7-day losing streak on Monday. The S&P 500 Composite index, meanwhile, dipped 12.25 or 0.59% to 2,051.12, as eight of 10 sectors closed in the red. With the losses, the S&P 500 tested 2016-yearly lows before closing slightly positive for the year.
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