Stocks in Asia struggled to finish on a positive note last Thursday as the 30-stock index in the stateside reached the 22,000 handle again. Corporate earnings also influenced the markets.
One of the market movers on the day was the released shares of Australian-British mining company Rio Tinto which dropped as low as 2.2 percent regardless of it announcing a doubled profit for the first quarter last year. The miner also reported a share buyback worth $1 billion.
The market is also forecasted to keep an eye on the shares of banking firm Standard Chartered that were Hong Kong-listed following its earnings report on Wednesday’s closing bell. Even though Standard Chartered announced that it would start paying dividends, the pretax profit of this British financial services company advanced more than 93 percent for the first quarter.
On Asian indices, Japanese benchmark Nikkei 225 index declined more than 0.16 percent and the Kospi index in South Korea edged 1.21 percent lower on the day. On the Down Under, ASX 200 index slipped more than 0.56 percent due to the poor performance from its utilities sub-index and a 0.7 percent drop from its financial sector.
Corporate earnings also weighed on markets with the Singapore-based real estate company CapitaLand announcing its total profit after its minority interests and tax for the second half rose more than 97 percent on year as it came in at S$5799.3 (425.7 million in USD).
In the stateside, major indices reached their record highs with the Dow Jones industrial average jumping 0.24 percent to finish at 22,016.24.