TOKYO (Reuters) - Asian stocks were on shaky ground on Wednesday while the Chinese yuan stood near 11-month lows as the specter of a Sino-U.S. trade war haunted investors ahead of an end-of-week deadline for U.S. tariffs on billions of dollars worth of Chinese imports.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan edged up 0.1 percent in early trade, a day after it hit a nine-month low. Japan’s Nikkei lost 0.5 percent.
Wall Street dropped on Tuesday, giving up early gains in a truncated session ahead of the Independence Day holiday on Wednesday, while technology shares came under pressure just a day after their solid start for the quarter on Monday.
The S&P 500 lost 0.49 percent while the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.86 percent.
Facebook lost 2.3 percent after the Washington Post reported a federal probe on the data breach linked to Cambridge Analytica was broadened while Tesla fell 7.2 percent on questions over whether it could sustain the pace of making its Model 3 sedans.
Micron Technology Inc fell 5.5 percent after its rival firm, Taiwan-based competitor United Microelectronics Corp 2303.TW, said it received a temporary injunction banning chip sales in mainland China.
Coming on the heels of escalating tensions between the United States and China over tariffs and investment restrictions, the injunction sparked selling in other U.S. chipmakers.
“We have the issue of Micron just when technology shares started to lose momentum after their stellar performance so far this year. If we see further profit-taking in the sector, that would be worrying given their heavy weighting in major indexes,” said Nobuhiko Kuramochi, chief strategist at Mizuho Securities.
