Investing.com – Asian stocks were mixed in afternoon trade on Friday ahead of the second-quarter U.S. GDP report due later in the day.
Technology stocks took a hit in the U.S. after Facebook reported a miss in second-quarter revenue and its CFO warned of revenue growth slowdown. The company’s shares plunged as much as 20% on the back of those results, marking the largest ever loss of value in one day for a U.S. traded company.
In Asia, China’s Shanghai Composite and the SZSE Component fell 0.1% and 0.2% respectively by 1:30AM ET (05:30 GMT). The country’s industrial profits rose 20% to 658.29 billion yuan ($96.69 billion) in June, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said on Friday, compared with a 21.1% rise in May.
The yuan received some focus as it weakened again on Friday. The Chinese currency looks set to record a seventh weekly drop, its longest slide since 2015 as traders concerned that authorities would refrain from heavy intervention to stem the yuan’s plunge as long as there is no sign of speculative short trades.
Some analysts believed Chinese authorities might prefer a weaker currency to offset the impact of a trade war with the U.S.
Meanwhile, Representatives from the U.S. and China had an unpleasant conversation at the World Trade Organization meeting on Thursday.
During the meeting, Washington asked for reforms targeting China’s responsiveness to the market, while Beijing said it would not respond to the U.S.’s tactics.
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Xiangchen said “Extortion, distortion or demonization does no good to resolve the issues..Holding our feet to the fire has never worked,” he added.
Another Chinese official noted at the event that China will retaliate against any additional U.S. tariffs, regardless of the volume of goods targeted.
“We clearly have a chronic problem with China,” U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in Senate testimony on Thursday, adding that trade problems with Beijing will take years to resolve.
On the same day, the U.S. Senate passed a bill, which will cut or eliminate the tariffs on about 1,660 items made outside the country. Half of them are produced in China.
The Hang Seng Index was also down 0.3%.
Elsewhere, Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.3% in afternoon trade. The country’s core consumer prices rose 0.8% in July from a year earlier, data showed on Friday, compared with the general consensus for a 0.7% gain.
Nomura fell as much as 5% the company reported net profit in the quarter ending in June fell to 5.2 billion yen ($46.8 million), compared to 56.9 billion yen one year ago.
Down under, the S&P/ASX 200 200 gained 0.8%.