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Tokyo, Japan (BBN) – Asian markets traded sideways on Tuesday, after major indexes on Wall Street closed in the green and on headlines out of the U.K. of a deadly explosion at a concert venue in Manchester, reports cnbc.com.
Nineteen people were reported dead following a blast at the Manchester Arena in northern England where U.S. singer Ariana Grande had been performing, Reuters said.
The U.K. police are treating the blast as a terrorism incident.
The safe-haven yen climbed after news of the bombing. The dollar was fetching as little as 110.84 yen down from around 111.34 yen earlier. At 11:42 a.m. HK/SIN, the dollar was fetching 111.15 yen.
The British pound also slipped after the news, fetching as little as $1.2983, off a high of $1.3005 earlier. The pound last traded at $1.2980.
Against the yen, the pound slipped to trade at 144.29 yen.
“Pound/yen fell to a two-session low following reports of the blast, although volatility surrounding the reaction does not yet suggest the downside will be of great magnitude. This may change if the story evolves, but at the time of writing, pound/yen is trading well within its typical range compared with its three-month average,” ThinkMarkets Senior Market Analyst Matt Simpson told CNBC.
FTSE futures, which traded at 7,478.5 before the blast, was mostly stable, trading at 7,482.5 at 9:45 a.m. HK/SIN.
“There has been little response to this awful event by the FTSE futures markets. This reflects the market view that these terrorist events are now an ongoing risk. Each individual terrorist event is unlikely to lead to any significant disruption to commerce or financial markets,” CMC Markets Chief Market Analyst Ric Spooner told CNBC in an email.
The Nikkei 225 dipped 0.1 percent in Tuesday trade while the ASX 200 declined 0.03 percent. South Korea’s benchmark Kospi index surged 0.91 percent.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up 0.29 percent. Mainland China markets traded lower, with the Shanghai Composite down 0.1 percent and the Shenzhen Composite tumbled 0.864 percent.
HNA Group is negotiating a stake in Hong Kong-listed Value Partners Group, an asset management company, according to reports.
Cathay Pacific will cut a total of 800 jobs, the South China Morning Post reported. This is an additional 200 jobs compared to the 600 jobs the airline said it would cut on Monday. Cathay shares fell 1.73 percent.
In Singapore, trade of Noble Group was halted after they fell almost 32 percent. Shares of the company sank after S&P Global Ratings downgraded the commodity trader’s credit rating to ‘CCC+.’ Reuters also reported that Sinochem had decided to stop pursuing a stake in the company due to Noble’s shaky outlook.
In other currency news, the dollar weakened further against a basket of currencies to trade at a six-month low. The dollar index last traded at 96.909, off the 97 handle seen in the last session.
Meanwhile, the common currency hit a six-month high in the previous session following comments from the German Chancellor Angela Merkel about euro weakness. The euro traded at $1.246 at 11:48 a.m. HK/SIN.
Oil prices declined after rising to a one-month high in the last session on hopes that OPEC-led output cuts could be further deepened. Benchmark Brent crude shed 0.39 percent to trade at $53.66 a barrel and U.S. crude was off 0.39 percent to trade at $50.93.
In economic news, Singapore CPI data for the month of April is due at 1:00 pm HK/SIN. Hong Kong April CPI is due later in afternoon.
Stateside, equities gained across the board in the last session as tech and defense stocks made substantial gains.
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