HONG KONG — Asian shares followed Wall Street lower on Wednesday as momentum cooled ahead of the scorching heat “Trump trade” which followed the American markets Donald Trump’s presidential victory.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 1.7% to 38,719.60, while wholesale inflation hit the highest level since July last year. The business goods price index, which measures price changes of goods traded in the business sector, rose 3.4% year on year in October, according to data from the Bank of Japan. The increase was partly attributed to the decline of the Japanese yen against the US dollar.
South Korea’s Kospi lost 2.6% to 2,417.16. Shares of Samsung Electronics fell 4.5% in Wednesday trading, hitting their lowest level in more than four years.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell for a fourth day, down 0.6% to 19,721.10. The Shanghai Composite gained 0.3% to 3,431.82.
The Australian S&The P/ASX 200 fell 0.8% to 8,193.40.
US futures fell while oil prices were higher.
On Tuesday the S&P500 fell 0.3% to 5,983.99, a day after setting its value. last record of all time. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.9% to 43,910.98, and the Nasdaq index fell 0.1% to 19,281.40.
Stocks had been largely up since last week on the expectations Trump prefers lower tax rates and other policies could mean faster economic growth, as well as greater U.S. national debt higher inflation. Some parts of the market rose with particularly high-quality fuels, such as smaller US stocks that benefited most from Trump’s ‘America First’ ideas.
They gave back some of their big gains on Tuesday, and the Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell a market-leading 1.8%. Even Teslawhich is run by Trump’s ally Elon Musk, sank. It fell 6.1%, for its first loss since before Election Day.
A jump in Treasury yields also added pressure to the stock market as trading in U.S. Treasury bonds resumed after Monday’s Veterans Day. The yield on the 10-year government bond rose to 4.42% on Tuesday from 4.31% late Friday, which is a notable move for the bond market.
Treasury yields have risen sharply since September, largely because the US economy has remained much more resilient than feared. The hope is that it can remain solid while the Federal Reserve continues to cut interest rates to keep the labor market going while it is being helped inflation almost fallen to the 2% target.
Part of the interest rate increase is also due to Trump. He talks about tariffs and other policies that economists say could increase inflation and the U.S. government’s national debt. That puts upward pressure on Treasury yields and could hamper the Fed’s plans to cut rates. While lower rates can stimulate the economy, they can also give more fuel to inflation.
The next update on inflation will come Wednesday, when the U.S. government will release the latest figures on the prices American consumers are paying across the country. Economists expect inflation to rise to 2.6% in October, up from 2.4% the month before. But they are also looking for underlying inflation trends, which ignore grocery and fuel prices, which can zigzag sharply from one month to the next, to remain stable at 3.3%.
In the crypto marketBitcoin rose to a new all-time high before retreating. Trump has embraced cryptocurrencies in general and promised to make his country the crypto capital of the world. Bitcoin rose to $89,995 before falling back to $89,500, according to CoinDesk. It started the year under $43,000.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude rose 18 cents to $68.30 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 19 cents to $72.08 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose from 154.51 yen to 155.06 Japanese yen. The euro was at $1.0610, down from $1.0625.