Asian market is going down

Mainland Chinese stocks deepened losses by the afternoon, with other Asia Pacific markets also moving lower as U.S.-China tensions worsened on Friday. In mainland China, the Shanghai composite fell 4.20%, while the Shenzhen composite tumbled 4%. The Shenzhen component dived around 5%. The Hang Seng index declined 2.34%. Tech stocks fell across the board, with Tencent tumbling 5.12% and Alibaba down 3.41%. Gaming stocks also saw steep losses.

Tensions between U.S. and China took center stage this week. China announced on Friday that it ordered the United States to shut its consulate in Chengdu, following the U.S. demanding the closure of the Chinese consulate in Houston.

Preceding that, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also slammed China in a speech on Thursday. He said Washington will no longer tolerate Beijing’s attempts to usurp global order.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 tumbled 1.19%, with losses seen in the heavily weighted financials sector and oil stocks. Over in South Korea, the Kospi slipped 0.59%. Markets in Japan are closed for a holiday on Friday. Overall, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 1.72%. Over in the U.S., a sell-off in tech stocks and worse-than-expected jobless claims also hit sentiment.

Apple fell 4.5% and Microsoft tumbled 4.3%, pushing the broader market lower. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 353.51 points, or 1.3%, to 26,652.33. The S&P 500 slid 1.2%, or 40.36 points, to 3,235.66, snapping a four-day winning streak. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.2%, or 244.71 points, to 10,461.42.

U.S. weekly jobless claims came in at 1.416 million for last week, marking the 18th straight week in which initial claims totaled more than 1 million. That was worse than the 1.3 million expected by economists in a Dow Jones poll.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 94.647, continuing its steady decline this week. It slipped below the 95 level on Thursday. The Japanese yen traded at 106.39 per dollar, after wavering between 106 and 107 for most of this week. The Australian dollar slipped below the 0.71 level, last changing hands around 0.7090. Oil prices inched up in the morning of Asian trading hours. International benchmark Brent crude futures rose 0.32% to $43.45 per barrel. U.S. crude futures edged up 0.19% to $41.15 per barrel.

China’s Shenzhen stocks dive 5% as U.S.-China tensions flare, CNBC, Jul 24