Hong Kong shares drop 3.7% and mainland China stocks tumble to near 5-year lows

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index tumbled 3.68% on Wednesday to close at 15,282.32 — its lowest level since November 2022.

The mainland Chinese CSI 300 fell to an almost five-year low after China’s fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth missed estimates. The index, which measures the largest companies listed in Shanghai and Shenzhen, fell 2.18% to close at 3,229.08.

The country’s economy grew by 5.2% in the October to December period last year, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday, missing expectations of a 5.3% growth forecast by economists polled by Reuters. GDP climbed 5.2% for the whole of 2023.

South Korea’s Kospi was also down 2.47% to end at 2,435.9, its lowest since Nov. 14, while the small-cap Kosdaq dipped 2.25% to 833.05. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell for a fourth day, down 0.29% at 7,393.1.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 extended losses for a second straight day after touching 33-year highs on Monday, with the index slipping 0.4% to 35,477.75 and the broad-based Topix fell 0.3% to end at 2,496.38.

China AMC Fund Management Co will reportedly temporarily suspend the Nikkei 225 ETF fund trading on Wednesday due to high premiums.

Japanese IT multinational Fujitsu was the second largest loser on the Nikkei after its Europe co-CEO apologized said the company had a “moral obligation” to compensate wrongly convicted sub-postmasters in the UK.

Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes fell as bond yields ticked higher and Wall Street pored through the latest batch of fourth-quarter earnings.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury note yield climbed more than 11 basis points to 4.064% after Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller indicated in a speech that the central bank could ease monetary policy slower than Wall Street had anticipated.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average declined 0.62%, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.37% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.19%.

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