Investing.com - Asian shares fell on Wednesday following Wall Street with Japan down sharply after an apparent North Korea missile test that reports said failed.
Reuters, citing Yonhap news agency, reported the isolated nation in the Korean peninsula may have conducted a missile launch with a U.S. military spokesman adding that "a missile appears to have exploded within seconds of launch."
The benchmark Nikkei 225 was down 2.01%. Shares of Kawasaki Heavy Industries fell 3.92%, Komatsu fell 2.08% and ShinMaywa Industries was down 1.78%.
Earlier, Japan reported exports in February rose 11.3%, beating a 10.6% gain expected, while imports rose 1.2%, double the 0.6% rise seen for the third straight month of increases. At the same time, minutes from the Bank of Japan's January policy meeting signaled sentiment on the nine-member board that companies will modestly raise prices and wages to reflect better confidence in the economy.
Most board members also rejected any move for the BoJ to raise its 10-year government bond yield target. The BoJ raised its growth projections in January and maintained its pledge to guide short-term interest rates at minus 0.1 percent and the 10-year government bond yield around zero percent.
Elsewhere, Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Fed and Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester in the U.S. noted the case for more rate hikes this year remains strong, arguing economic trends are on the upswing and risks are growing.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 shed 1.59%. The Shanghai composite slipped 0.77% and Hong Kong's Hang Seng index declined by 1.42%.
Overnight, Wall St. closed lower on Tuesday, led by financials, as uncertainty concerning the timeline of the Trump administration pro-growth policies weighed on sentiment.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 1.14% lower at 20,668. The S&P 500 shed 1.24% and the Nasdaq Composite closed at 5,793 down 1.83%.
The Federal Reserve’s dovish comments last week concerning the pace of the rate hikes and worries that President Donald Trump will struggle to implement some of his pro-growth policies, which includes tax reform, weighed on Financials and the broader market.
Fears that the Trump administration’s plan to replace Obamacare may take longer than expected, sparked concerns of further delays to the introduction of pro-growth policies such as tax-reform.
Elsewhere, the Commerce Department said on Tuesday, the current account deficit, which measures the difference in value between exported goods, services and interest payments, fell 3.1% to $112.4 billion.
Economists had expected the current account deficit to shrink to $128.2 billion.