A pedestrian walks past an electronic quotation board displaying share prices of the Tokyo Stock Exchange in Tokyo on June 16, 2020.
Kazuhiro Nogi | AFP | Getty Images
Shares in the Asia-Pacific dropped sharply on Wednesday after indices on Wall Street plunged following a higher-than-expected US consumer price index Report for August.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 dropped 2.7%, and the Topix index fell 2%. The Japanese Yen traded at 143.75 per dollar after hovering around its weakest levels since September 1998.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong dipped 2.55%, and the Hang Seng Tech index fell 2.96%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 shed 2.48%.
The Kospi in South Korea lost 1.34% and the Kosdaq declined 1.67%. The South Korean won passed the 1,390-mark against the greenback and was last trading at 1,391.98 against the dollar, around the weakest levels since March 2009.
Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite lost 1.02% and the Shenzhen Component fell 1.496%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 2.28%.
The US 2-year Treasury yield also reached 3.79%, the highest level since 2007. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1,276.37 points, or 3.94%, to close at 31,104.97. The S&P 500 shed 4.32% to 3,932.69, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 5.16% to end the session at 11,633.57.
“What is perhaps most disconcerting in all this is that the strength in core inflation is very much service sector-led categories,” said Ray Attrill, National Australia Bank’s head of FX strategy, wrote in a note, adding the sector is primarily wage inflation. -driven.
— CNBC’s Jeff Cox, Jesse Pound and Carmen Reinicke contributed to this report.
