Low appetite in Asian stock markets

Asian stocks were broadly lower on Tuesday as Wall Street’s rally took a breather. The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) surprised markets again by hiking interest rates by another 25 basis points. Asia-Pacific stocks were broadly lower on Tuesday, tracking moves on Wall Street after the benchmark S&P 500 erased earlier gains that sent the index trading at a nine-month intraday high. “Markets are taking a breather after Friday’s broad-based rally,” said Ryan Detrick, chief market strategist at Carson Group. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.67 percent ahead of the country’s central bank’s interest rate decision. Economists had expected the Reserve Bank of Australia to keep interest rates at 3.85 percent. However, the Reserve Bank of Australia surprised markets again by hiking interest rates by another 25 basis points. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 bucked the trend and was up 0.18 percent above 32,000, although the Topix was marginally lower. The last time the Nikkei traded at these levels was in the middle of Japan’s bubble economy — a period from 1986 to 1991 when property and stock prices were greatly inflated. The Nikkei reached an all-time high of just above 38,900 in December 1989. South Korea markets are closed on Tuesday for a holiday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index opened marginally higher, supported by property stocks. But mainland Chinese markets all fell, with the Shanghai Composite Index down 0.19 percent and the Shenzhen Component Index down 0.6 percent. In the U.S. overnight, the S&P 500 fell 0.2 percent and the Nasdaq Composite fell 0.09 percent. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.59 percent. Tech giant Apple in particular lost about 0.8 percent, retreating from all-time highs earlier in the session. The iPhone maker on Monday unveiled its highly anticipated virtual reality headset and a raft of software updates at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference.