Asia report: Japan's car makers suffer after Hurricane hits US sales

Wednesday's markets in Asia were full of woe, as Japan's car manufacturers reported weakened US sales but a jump in gold prices propped up prices in Sydney.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.66% to 24,110.96 after pushing to 27-year highs on Monday and Tuesday, despite the yen slipping 0.15% against the US dollar to 113.82.

Car manufacturing giants Honda and Toyota both dropped by more than 2.5% after both revealed approximate 7% declines in US sales throughout September.

The majority of major car brands saw sales decline year-on-year as Hurricane Florence disrupted business on the East Coast and sales had been boosted in September last year by customers looking to replace vehicles that had been damaged by Hurricane Harvey.

Japanese manufacturers had been boosted by the newly agreed Nafta deal between Canada and the US earlier this week, which will allow a quota of their cars manufactured in Canada to be exported to its southern neighbour without being slapped by tariffs.

Tokyo's banking and insurance sector also weakened, with Dai-ichi Life and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial both sliding.

Over in South Korea, the Kospi index dropped by 1.25% to 2,309.57 as Samsung’s shares continued their sustained drop.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.13% to 27,091.26 as insurer AIA fell by 2.59%.

Oil prices remained fairly steady, as Brent Crude rose by 0.06% to $84.85 while WTI rose by 0.07% to $75.28, while gold prices rallying to a two-week high helped lift Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 0.32% to 6,146.07.

Newcrest Mining and Evolution Mining drove the market’s upturn as both gold miners saw their share price increase by more than 3%.

New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 dropped by 0.35% to 9,293.95 after it emerged that A2 Milk Co director Peter Hinton sold 25,000 shares on 26 September, sending the share price lower and encouraging investor concerns that had initially been catalysed by a recent share sale by chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka.

Elsewhere, Fletcher Building dropped after its NZ$284m bid for 20% of steel product manufacturer Steel & Tube’s shares was turned down as being too low.

New Zealand’s dollar dropped by 0.49% against the US dollar to NZ$1.5239 while the Australian dollar similarly fell 0.5% against the greenback to AU$1.3981.