Investing.com - Asian markets fell in morning trade on Wednesday after U.S. stocks closed lower on their first trading day in September. JD.com fell as much as 7% on reports that founder and CEO of the company Richard Liu was arrested in Minneapolis last week following an allegation of rape.
Overnight, the S&P 500 fell by 0.2% to close at 2,896.72 while the Nasdaq Composite also slid by 0.2% to 8,091.25. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 12.34 points to close at 25,952.48.
In Asia, Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.3% by 9:32PM ET (01:32 GMT) as data showed the Markit/Nikkei Japan Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) increased to 51.5 on a seasonally adjusted basis from 51.3 in July.
The index has remained above the 50 threshold for 23 consecutive months.
China’s Shanghai Composite and the Shenzhen Component slipped 0.3% and 0.5% respectively.
Citing people familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that the country’s top leaders are looking into a proposal to combine China United Network Communications Group Co. and China Telecommunications Corp., two of the nation’s three wireless carriers.
No decision’s been made and a merger may not happen, according to the report.
"5G success is one of the most important goals to China and the merger is the perfect solution to what China wants to achieve," said Edison Lee, an analyst at Jefferies Hong Kong Ltd.
"As we head into another step up in the U.S.-China trade war, we believe the State Council would be more eager to think fresh and more radically about how to accelerate 5G rollout."
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slid 1.0%.
Elsewhere. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.8% lower, while South Korea’s KOSPI was little changed at 2315.4.