Asia markets poised to track Wall Street declines, investors await India factory activity data

Asia-Pacific markets were set to fall Wednesday after Wall Street saw the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P500 indexes tumble on the first trading day of the year.

Investors in Asia await India’s factory activity data from S&P Global for December, while oil prices will also be closely watched following Iran’s deployment of a destroyer to the Red Sea that has ratcheted up tensions in the region.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 retreated 0.9% after nearing its all-time high on Tuesday, while futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 16,687, pointing to a weaker open compared with the HSI’s close of 16,788.55.

Japan’s markets are closed until Thursday. A Japan Airlines flight collided with a coast guard aircraft at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on Tuesday, causing five deaths.

The Coast Guard aircraft was headed to Niigata prefecture to provide relief for the recent earthquake that hit Japan on New Year’s Day, according to initial reports.

Overnight in the U.S. the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.63% and the S&P500 slid 0.57%.

Apple shares fell more than 3% after Barclays downgraded the Magnificent Seven stock to “underweight.”

The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to stay afloat as defensive stocks such as Johnson & Johnson and Merck gained.

— CNBC’s Sarah Min and Alex Harring contributed to this report