In early trading on Wednesday, Asian markets plummeted after US President Donald Trump gave no clear-cut details on measures towards a much-anticipated US-China trade harmony.
Trump reiterated his statement that an agreement "can happen soon" in a New York address on Tuesday, but offered no details. Tariffs seem to be the sticking point, so Trump warned again that "if we don't make a deal, we're going to raise tariffs significantly."
Trump even screamed against the Federal Reserve for not trimming down its tariffs as fast as he wished, and reported U.S. economic data.
In the stock market, Japan's Nikkei dropped 0.8 percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell by 1.6 percent. The Shanghai Composite drifted down 0.2 percent and the Shenzhen Composite edged up 0.1 percent.
South Korea's Kospi declined 0.9 percent while benchmark indices declined in Taiwan, Singapore, and Indonesia. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.5 percent, while New Zealand's NZX-50 dropped slightly after the central bank held its official cash rate unchanged.
Nissan dropped in Tokyo trading among individual stocks after announcing a 70 percent fall in the previous year's operating income and cutting its revenue and profit forecast.
General retailing also decreased by 1.85 percent. In Hong Kong, property shares such as New World Development, Wharf Real Estate, and Sino Land Co. were all battered as well.
Trump's remarks "served as a reminder of the difficulty shared by both sides," said IG's Jingyi Pan in a study. She said though they were seen by shareholders as "positioning claims," and increasing their effect. The comments did little to jolt Wall Street, despite modest gains.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 index SPX benchmark grew 0.17 percent for the first time beyond the point of 3,100 but the profits did not hold. The index ended at 3,091.86 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 27,691.50 while the Nasdaq Composite rallied 0.4 points to a weekly high of 8,486.08 at 0.25 percent.
For the most part, investor sentiment has been growing in over five weeks as fears about the US-China trade friction, among other variables, have waned.
Stocks in health care, engineering, and telecom providers pointed to rises on Tuesday, outweighing consistent declines in energy firms and elsewhere around the markets.
This week, the United States labor department provided information on retail and wholesale inflation. Economists expect a government report to show that retail sales in October have returned to normal levels.
