Asian stocks slip on China and South Korea sell-off

The stocks on the Asian bourses caught a renewed risk-aversion wave and eased from fresh decade highs, having erased modest gains seen in the opening trades. The fresh selling seen in the Asian equity markets can be mainly attributed to sell-off seen in the Chinese and South Korean stocks.

The Chinese equity markets extended last week’s bearish bias on Monday, as rising Chinese bond yields continue to dull the attractiveness of the stock markets as an alternative higher-yielding investment. Meanwhile, a drop in the Chinese industrial profits data also weighed down on the sentiment around the local stocks. China’s industrial profits grew 25.1% in October compared to the year before, against a 27.7% rise seen in September.

Meanwhile, the South Korean markets slumped on the back of a sell-off in the electronics and tech stocks, with the heavyweight Samsung Electronics down 4.4%. SK Hynix, fell 3.53% and Naver lost 2.35%.

The Japanese stocks erased early modest gains and turned negative, dragged lower by the housing and manufacturing sector stocks. Meanwhile, the Australian markets slipped, in the wake of the weakness seen in the resource and energy sector stocks.

Japan’s benchmark index, the Nikkei 225 drops -0.24% to 22,497, Australia’s ASX 200 trades almost flat at 5,985 points. On the mainland, the Shanghai Composite Index loses -0.81% to 3,326, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng skids -0.43% to 29,736. South Korea’s KOSPI sinks -1.27% to 2,510 levels.