Asian shares hit six-month low as US trade battles start hitting corporate profits
Tokyo — Asian shares slid to their lowest in six months on Friday, on signs that the US trade battles with China and other countries are starting to chip away at corporate profits, while oil prices were choppy ahead of an Opec meeting to discuss raising output. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped as much as 0.35% at one point to touch its lowest since early December. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng hit six-month lows, having lost 3.9% so far this week. South Korea’s Kospi hit nine-month lows and in mainland China, the CSI300 index lost almost 5% this week to hit one-year lows. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.85%. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average fell for the eighth straight session on Thursday and the S&P 500 lost 0.63%, with industrials and materials shares hit hard. Even the high-flying Nasdaq composite, which has outperformed this year on the perception that hi-tech shares were less vulnerable to trade wars, shed 0.88%. In a sign that escalating tension...
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