TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares mostly declined Thursday as investors grappled with uncertainty ahead of the United States presidential election on Nov. 5.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dipped 0.5% in early trading to 39,069.20. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.3% to 8,153.20. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.3% to 20,433.83, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.3% to 3,258.04.
South Korea’s Kospi dropped 1.2% to 2,562.07, after the South Korean government reported North Korea’s test-launch of what’s suspected to be new long-range missile designed to strike the continental U.S.
Details of the long-range missile capabilities North Korea was testing were not yet known, but the launch was likely meant to grab America’s attention ahead of the U.S. election Tuesday.
Market watchers were also awaiting a monetary policy decision from the Bank of Japan, although analysts expect the central bank to stay pat.
Upcoming earnings releases in Asia, as well as the rest of the world, also added to the wait-and-see mood.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 slipped 0.3% to 5,813.67 after drifting between small gains and losses several times, though it’s still near its all-time high set earlier in October.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average edged down 0.2% to 42,141.54, while the Nasdaq composite slipped 0.6% to 18,607.93, from its own record set the day before.
Alphabet climbed 2.8% after beating analysts’ forecasts for profit in the latest quarter, thanks largely to the performance of its Google business. It’s the latest of the highly influential group of stocks known as the “Magnificent Seven” to top high expectations for growth.
Computer chip companies have been some of the biggest winners of the artificial intelligence rush, but Advanced Micro Devices helped drag down stocks across the industry after reporting profit for the latest quarter that only matched analysts’ expectations.
Nvidia, a chip giant that’s rocketed to become one of Wall Street’s largest most influential stocks, fell 1.4% and was one of the heaviest weights on the S&P 500.
One of the few stocks to hurt the index nearly as much was Eli Lilly, which sank 6.3% amid concerns about two of the drug maker’s blockbuster products: diabetes treatment Mounjaro and weight loss counterpart Zepbound.
Also falling was Trump Media & Technology Group, the company behind former Donald Trump’s Truth Social platform. It dropped 22.3% for the worst loss since taking its place on the Nasdaq stock market following a merger with another company in March. The stock is notoriously volatile, and it had been rallying strongly over the past month, up to $40 from roughly $12.