Hong Kong stocks extend sell-off, China shares languish near 5-year lows

Hong Kong stocks rebounded Thursday, while mainland China shares languished near five-year lows.

The CSI 300 index was 0.94% lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 0.3%. Miners led sectoral declines on both the indexes.

It comes a day after data showed China’s economy expanded by 5.2% in the fourth quarter of 2023, missing Reuters poll estimates of 5.3% growth.

In Singapore, Transport Minister S Iswaran has resigned and faces 27 charges including for corruption, following months of investigations by the country’s anti-graft agency.

Australian markets extended their losses to a fifth straight day, with the S&P/ASX 200 falling 0.63% and closing at 7,346.5.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped marginally, while the Topix was down 0.06%.

South Korea’s Kospi was hovering near the flatline, while and the small-cap Kosdaq rose 0.5%.

Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes fell, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average recording a third straight day of losses.

The 30-stock Dow declined 0.25%, while the S&P 500 slid 0.56% and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.59%.

Retail sales data for December came in stronger than expected, indicating a resilient consumer demand and putting aggressive rate cuts from the Federal Reserve into doubt.

Retail sales were up 0.6% from November, and gained 0.4% month over month, excluding autos. Economists polled by Dow Jones had estimated a 0.4% month-on-month increase in retail sales and 0.2% ex-autos.

— CNBC’s Hakyung Kim and Samantha Subin contributed to this report