Hong Kong stocks fell on Thursday, with the Hang Seng index losing 1.23% in opening trade. China's factory activity shrank for the first time in three months in August. The Caixin/Markit manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) fell to 49.5 in August against 50.4 in July, reported Reuters.
Shares of Meituan, Nio, and XPeng fell over 2% each.
Macro News: United Nations human rights commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, has said China has committed “serious human rights violations” against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang province, which may constitute crimes against humanity, reported The Guardian.
China is battling its broadest exposure to COVID-19 since February 2021 with all 31 mainland provinces having witnessed at least one local Covid case over the past ten days, reported Bloomberg.
Hong Kong’s retail sales rose 4.1% in July compared to a year ago, snapping two months of decline, reported Bloomberg.
Company News: Alibaba’s Lazada Group is getting ready for its maiden foray into Europe to take on rivals such as Amazon.com Inc. AMZN and Zalando SE ZLNDY, reported Bloomberg.
Chinese tech giant Tencent Holdings has set a soft target of divesting close to RMB 100 billion ($14.5 billion) of its $88 billion listed equity portfolio this year, reported The Financial Times.
Top Gainers and Losers: Meituan and WuXi Biologics (Cayman) Inc. were the top losers on Hang Seng, while Techtronic Industries Co Ltd and Hengan International Group Co Ltd were the top gainers in opening trade.
Global News: U.S. futures traded in the red on Thursday morning Asia session. The Dow Jones futures were down 0.43%, while the Nasdaq futures lost 1.12%. The S&P 500 futures shed 0.686%.
Elsewhere in Asia, Australia’s ASX 200 lost 1.95%. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 1.66%, while China’s Shanghai Composite index was trading flat. South Korea’s Kospi shed 1.68%.
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