Sunrise scene of downtown Seoul skyline, Aerial view of N Seoul Tower in Namsan Park in twilight sky in morning. The best viewpoint and trekking from Inwangsan Mountain in the South Korean city of Seoul
Mongkol Chuewong | moment | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets opened lower on the penultimate trading day this year after Wall Street fell on Friday.
South Korea Kospi fell 0.3%, while the Kosdaq lost 0.41% on Monday as the country grapples with political unrest and poor industrial data, among other issues.
South Korea suffered its worst air disaster on Sunday, killing 179 people when a Jeju Air plane crashed into a wall at Muan International Airport and burst into flames.
South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok ordered an urgent safety inspection of the country’s air operations system to be carried out once recovery efforts from the Jeju Air crash are completed.
Jeju Air shares hit an all-time low on Monday and were last down 8.53%, according to FactSet data. Shares of other Korean airlines were volatile. Korean Air fell 1%, while budget carriers T’way Air and Jin Air fell 3.23% and 2.12%, respectively. Air Busan rose over 13%.
South Korea’s industrial production contracted 0.7% on a monthly basis in November, more than the 0.4% decline expected by Reuters. On an annual basis, industrial production rose 0.1%, falling short of Reuters expectations of a 0.4% rise. In comparison, the increase in October was 6.3%.
The country’s parliament voted to impeach incumbent President Han Duck-soo on Dec. 27, not long after President Yoon Suk Yeol was impeached over his brief martial law decree that plunged the country into political unrest.
Japan Nikkei 225 fell 0.76% while the Topix fell 0.30%
Japan’s factory activity contracted more slowly in December. Jibun Bank Japan’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index rose to 49.6 in December, slightly above November’s reading of 49.0 and marking the weakest decline in three months. However, the value remained below the threshold of 50 that separates an expansion from a contraction.
“The headline reading moved closer to neutral as both production and new orders declined more moderately,” said Usamah Bhatti of S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.4% lower.
Traders await China’s manufacturing PMI on Tuesday, while markets will remain closed on Wednesday for the Lunar New Year holiday.
U.S. stocks fell on Friday, led by technology stocks, but major indexes still rose for the week.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 333.59 points, or 0.77%, to 42,992.21, falling for the first time in six sessions. The S&P 500 fell 1.11% to 5,970.84. The Nasdaq Composite slipped 1.49% to 19,722.03, while Tesla fell about 5% and Nvidia fell 2%.
—CNBC’s Yun Li and Pia Singh contributed to this report.