ASIA MIDDAY MOVES | KOSPI Falls 3.76% and TAIEX Drops 2.96% as Hong Kong Edges Up; Japan Closed for Holiday

According to HKET, RTHK and Yahoo Finance Taiwan, Japanese markets were closed on Tuesday for the Culture Day holiday, with no trading in the Nikkei 225 or TOPIX. Seoul's KOSPI fell 220.20 points, or 3.76%, to 5,638.88 as of 04:32 UTC. Chip heavyweights led the decline, with Samsung Electronics down 4.37% at 219,000 won and SK Hynix down 5.43% at 1,392,000 won. Hong Kong stocks ended the morning session higher. The Hang Seng Index opened 76 points higher at 23,469, rose as much as 152 points to a high of 23,545, and finished the half-day up 121.68 points at 23,515, with turnover of HK$115.27 billion. The Hang Seng Tech Index gained nearly 1% to 3,876. Tencent rose more than 1% as it tested the HK$400 level, Alibaba added 0.9% and JD.com climbed nearly 5%. Lenovo fell more than 5%, while PetroChina and CNOOC declined more than 2% and nearly 3%, respectively. Taiwan's TAIEX at one point fell more than 1,500 points intraday, slipping below 43,400. As of 04:32 UTC, it was at 43,592.37, down 1,327.77 points, or 2.96%. MediaTek fell 6.42% to NT$3,715, and TSMC lost 1.07% to NT$2,305. In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite at one point fell below 3,600 and ended the morning session at 3,612.09, down 0.71%. The Shenzhen Component slipped 0.16% to 10,993.07, and the CSI 300 eased 0.08% to 4,013.89.