DHAKA: Asian stocks were mixed on Wednesday despite getting a strong lead from Wall Street as the markets took a break from the previous session’s rally.

The Dow Jones and S&P 500 indexes climbed over 1%, starting the month with gains overnight, reports the BBC.

But Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was down 0.3% to 19,959.12 after it breached the key 20,000 level for the first time since August on Tuesday.

Chinese shares continued to head higher despite disappointing factory data.

The Shanghai Composite was up 0.4% to 3,469.89, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.3% to 22,456.13 in early trade.

The markets had ended higher on Tuesday despite manufacturing surveys showing that factory activity continued to shrink in November.

Australian shares were lower despite third quarter growth figures coming in above expectations on rising exports.

The economy grew 2.5% in the three months to September from a year ago, compared with 1.9% in the previous quarter and above forecasts of 2.4%.

But investors seemed to ignore the positive economic data with the S&P/ASX 200 index down 0.1% to 5,261.80.

South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index was lower by 0.3% to 2,018.75 as data showed that imports rose faster than exports in the export-driven economy.

Exports in October rose a seasonally adjusted 1.6% from September, while imports jumped 6.1%.

BDST: 1200 HRS, DEC 02, 2015
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