Asia markets slip in muted trade, StanChart rebounds

HONG KONG—Asian markets fell Wednesday despite better-than-expected US and European data, while Standard Chartered bank rebounded after settling claims it helped Iranian firms dodge US sanctions.

With many traders away for summer breaks volume was light and movement limited, while Wall Street offered little guidance with a mixed finish.

Hong Kong fell 1.18 percent, or 239.39 points, to 20,052.29, Tokyo was off  0.05 percent, or 4.84 points, to 8,925.04, and Sydney lost 0.26 percent, or 11 points, to 4,281.2.

Shanghai lost 1.10 percent, or 23.58 points, to 2,118.95. Seoul was closed for a public holiday.

The falls came despite official data showing that US retail sales rose by a better-than-expected 0.8 percent in July, breaking a three-month losing streak and offering hope of faster growth in the third quarter.

US stocks made early gains Tuesday on the figures but ended mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.02 percent, the S&P 500 down 0.01 percent and the tech-rich Nasdaq down 0.18 percent.

The retail figures may have disappointed some investors who were hoping for further poor data that would spur the US Federal Reserve into new stimulus measures to kickstart growth, analysts said.

The hope of US action, combined with hints from the European Central Bank that it would restart a bond-buying program to help crisis-hit eurozone countries, has helped drive solid gains in stocks this month.

Meanwhile, a poor set of trade and production figures from China last week has raised expectations of fresh monetary easing by Beijing.

Despite Wednesday’s weak performance, analysts expected market sentiment to remain largely positive.

“Investors’ expectations for global central banks to ease remains the supportive factor for equity prices,” Jackson Wong, investment manager at Tanrich Securities in Hong Kong, told Dow Jones Newswires.

In Europe, second-quarter growth in eurozone heavyweights France and Germany came in better than expected, providing some respite for the under-pressure single currency, official data showed Tuesday.

The German economy, the continent’s biggest, grew by 0.3 percent owing to rising exports and solid domestic demand, while the French economy posted zero growth, defying forecasts that it would begin to slide into recession.

The overall picture remained bleak, however. The EU statistics office estimated that economic growth fell by 0.2 percent for the eurozone as a whole in the second quarter compared with the first three months of the year.

In Hong Kong, Standard Chartered closed 3.56 percent higher at HK$171.7 after the London-based lender said it would pay a fine of $340 million from a New York banking watchdog.

Its shares surged above 6.5 percent on the news earlier in the day but did not reach their August 6 level of HK$188.10, before the Iran accusations emerged.

The “civil penalty” came amid allegations the bank, a household name in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, hid 60,000 transactions with proscribed Iranian clients worth $250 billion over 10 years.

Analysts said the settlement was far from the worst-case scenario for the bank. Some had feared it could lose its New York banking license, effectively cutting it off from the US market.

On foreign exchange markets in early European trade, the dollar rose to 78.96 yen, from 78.73 yen in New York Tuesday afternoon.

The euro rose to $1.2332 and 97.38 yen, from $1.2321 and 97.01 yen in New York.

Oil slipped in the afternoon. New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate light sweet crude for delivery in September, was down 35 cents to $93.08, and Brent North Sea crude for September dropped 33 cents to $113.70.

Gold was at $1,594.67 at 1115 GMT, compared to $1,612.75 on Tuesday.

In other markets:

— Taipei fell 0.15 percent, or 11.51 points, to 7,467.74.

Smartphone maker HTC slid 4.13 percent to Tw$243.5 while Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. was 0.24 percent lower at Tw$83.0.

— Wellington rose 0.62 percent, or 22.30 points, to 3,631.19.

Contact Energy gained 0.4 percent to end at NZ$4.90, while Telecom Corp. surged 3.3 percent to NZ$2.835 and Fletcher Building was steady on NZ$6.53.

— Manila was flat, edging down 0.01 percent, or 0.72 points, to 5,266.66.

Top-traded Ayala Corp. fell 1.85 percent to 425 pesos and Metropolitan Bank added 0.90 percent to 94.85 pesos.

— Singapore closed 0.83 percent, or 25.73 points, lower at 3,062.11.

Singapore Telecom was down 0.60 percent to Sg$3.34 and casino operator Genting Singapore rose 2.34 percent to Sg$1.31.

— Kuala Lumpur stocks gained 0.05 percent, or 0.88 points, to 1,653.78.

PPB Group lost 4.6 percent to 14.10 ringgit, AirAsia shed 1.6 percent to 3.60 and Maxis gained 0.7 percent to 6.87.

— Bangkok was flat, edging up 0.01 points to 1,226.83

Coal producer Banpu slipped 0.85 percent to 466baht, while Siam City Cement was unchanged at 342 baht.

— Jakarta ended up 0.5 percent, or 20.43 points, at 4,141.99.

Car maker Astra rose 2.1 percent to 7,350 rupiah, Telkom put on 4.5 percent to 9,250 rupiah, and Indocement gained 1.7 percent to 20,500 rupiah.

— Mumbai was closed for a public holiday.