Asian stocks open mostly lower to follow Wall Street

Asian stocks opened with a mixed performance but mostly lower for the fourth consecutive session, with Japanese, Chinese and Australian stocks falling, as well as Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korea's Kospi Index, while New Zealand stocks rose, following developments and the economic data released by the Japanese economy and its Australian counterpart and amid the investors' focus on developments in the ongoing trade talks between Washington and Beijing.

We followed the Japanese economy's reading of the trade balance index, which showed the deficit has shrank to 14 billion yen against a surplus of 622 billion yen in May, exceeding expectations that the deficit shrank to 141 billion yen, while the seasonally adjusted index The same as a surplus of 590 billion yen against a deficit of 968 billion yen in May, also outperforming expectations of a surplus of 404 billion yen.

To the annual reading of exports, which fell to 6.7% from 7.8% in the previous reading for May, below expectations of a decline of 5.4%. The annual reading of imports showed the decline to 5.2% compared to 1.5% Earlier than in May, worse than expectations of a contraction of 0.2%.

Before the Australian economy release of labor market data, which showed a stable unemployment rate unchanged from May, in line with expectations at 5.2%, and with the Employment Change Index showing a slowdown in job creation to 500 added jobs versus 45.3 thousand jobs, below expectations at 9.1K, and coinciding with Australia's Business Confidence Index, which showed a rise to 6 versus 1 in the first quarter.

On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that progress towards a trade deal between the world's two biggest economies had been halted by US restrictions on China's Huawei Technologies, according to the newspaper sources familiar with the talks that are currently underway between US and China on reaching a trade agreement to avoid the existing trade war between the two countries.

On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said the road is still long before he could talk about a trade deal with China, noting that both the EU and China were injecting funds into their financial system, and that his administration could impose tariffs on imports from China if desired, adding that the cut in the federal funds rate will support the stock markets and their rise.

Japanese stock indices saw a decline during today's trading session, with the broader Topix index falling by 1.68% to lose 26.31 points down to 1,541.10, Nikkei 225 index fell by 1.60% to lose 343.06 points down to 21,126.12.

China's benchmark index, CSI 300 fell by 0.70% (26.62 points) to 3,778.02. The Shanghai Composite index fell 0.76% and lost 22.33 points to 2,909.36.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell 0.65% (184.50 points) to 28,408.67. South Korea's Kospi Index fell 0.33%, shedding 6.93 points to 2,065.99.

To New Zealand's NZX 50 index, which rose by 0.22% (23.54 points) reaching 10,678.34. On the other hand, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index shed 0.24% (16.06 points) to 6,657.20.