Asian stocks down as U.S.-China tensions simmer

Asian stocks traded lower earlier on Friday as new tensions mounted between the U.S. and China.

Recently, U.S. President Donald Trump issued executive orders to halt businesses from ByteDance, the owner of video-sharing app TikTok, and Tencent, owner of the WeChat app from operating within the country after 45 days. Trump added that the orders will include heavy penalties for any U.S. resident or company that engaged with any transactions with Tiktok and WeChat.

China’s Shanghai Composite lost 1.45% at 11:31 PM ET (4:31 AM GMT), while the Shenzhen Component traded lower by 1.23%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell by 2.28%.

Outside of China, Japan’s Nikkei fell by 0.83%, while South Korea’s KOSPI slid by 0.31%.

Down Under, the Australian ASX fell by 0.71% after its central bank warned about its quarterly statement on monetary policy which published earlier on Friday. In a statement, the Reserve Bank of Australia said that the latest lockdown in Melbourne could remove at least two percentage points from the current quarter’s national growth.