Japan down 3.5 percent as Asia slips following sharp declines on Wall Street

Asia markets traded lower on Friday following sharp declines in U.S. stocks overnight as a dire quarterly warning from Apple stoked fears of a slowdown in the global economy.

Nikkei 225 dropped 3.27 percent in morning trade while the Topix index fell 2.3 percent, with almost all sectors seeing declines. Japanese conglomerate Softbank fell 5.23 percent and Fast Retailing, the company behind the Uniqlo chain of apparel stores, declined 6.21 percent. Stocks in Japan were closed on Wednesday and Thursday for public holidays.

South Korea’s Kospi slipped about 0.1 percent.

Stocks in Australia also fell, with the benchmark ASX 200 down 0.89 percent as many sectors saw losses.

The heavily-weighted financial subindex declined 0.79 percent along with shares of the country’s so-called Big Four banks; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group slipped 0.66 percent, Commonwealth Bank of Australia shed 0.6 percent, Westpac fell 0.4 percent and National Australia Bank declined by 0.21 percent.

Chinese mainland markets also fell after market open while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index beat the downward trend to trade up 0.1 percent.

“For the brave, now would be a good time to be looking at … some of these markets,” Stefan Hofer, a managing director and chief investment strategist at LGT Bank Asia, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday. Hofer added that liquidity and trading volumes are “still quite thin at the outset of the year.”

“Fundamentally speaking, I think if we do have a trade deal with China, let’s say, by the middle of 2019, then Asia … will be the place to be in terms of equities,” he said, adding that the ongoing U.S.-China trade war has been “the major overhang that has been a problem” for Asian markets.

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