Asian Stocks Slip From One-Year High as Japan Shares Drop on Yen

(Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks retreated from an almost one-year high as Japanese shares dropped after the yen rebounded and as commodity companies led losses across the region.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slipped 0.2 percent to 138.35 as of 9:02 a.m. in Tokyo after closing Tuesday at the highest since Aug. 11. Material and health-care shares fell the most on the regional benchmark gauge. Japan’s Topix index lost 0.5 percent, with exporters helping send the measure lower as the yen held a 0.6 percent gain against the dollar.

“It’s going to be quite tough for Japan with the yen strengthening,” Nicholas Teo, a strategist at KGI Fraser Securities in Singapore, said by phone. “Japan has tried a lot of things to stimulate growth.”

Wednesday’s decline in Asian stocks comes after the Asian benchmark gauge climbed about 23 percent from a February low, shrugging off the effects of Britain’s vote to leave the European Union as central banks unleash further monetary easing while data spurs confidence in the world’s largest economy. Still, a resumed decline in oil is weighing on investor optimism, and both Chinese and Japanese stocks have slumped this year even as the regional measure recovers.

South Korea’s Kospi Index decreased 0.2 percent on Wednesday. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index fell 0.1 percent, as did New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 Index. Markets in China and Hong Kong have yet to start trading.

China Gains

Futures on the FTSE China A50 Index rose 0.2 percent in most recent trading, while those on the Hang Seng Index climbed 0.5 percent. The Shanghai Composite Index advanced 0.7 percent on Tuesday to its highest close since July 26, led by consumer and industrial companies, amid signs of stabilization in the world’s second-largest economy.

China’s producer-price index fell 1.7 percent in July from a year earlier, the statistics bureau said Tuesday, the smallest decline in almost two years, while passenger-vehicle sales accelerated the most in 17 months. Data in coming days are projected to confirm the stabilization in growth achieved in the first half of this year continued into July.

Futures on the S&P 500 Index slipped 0.1 percent. The U.S. equity benchmark index added less than 0.1 percent on Tuesday, hovering near a record.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Burgos in Singapore at jburgos4@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Tom Redmond at tredmond3@bloomberg.net, Chan Tien Hin

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