Asian stocks follow Wall St lower on weak US services data

BEIJING (AP) — Asian stock markets followed Wall Street lower Wednesday after U.S. services activity weakened.

Market benchmarks in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Seoul declined. Shanghai advanced.

Overnight, Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 index broke a seven-day streak of record closes and fell after the Institute of Supply Management reported service industry activity grew in June at a slower rate than forecast.

The “disappointing drop” suggests the U.S.recovery “is not immune” to global pockets of resurgence of the coronavirus, said Mizuho Bank in a report.

The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo sank 1% to 28,366.95 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong lost 0.9% to 27,813.25.

The Shanghai Composite Index was up 0.7% at 3,557.19 after China's Cabinet announced it would impose stricter data security and other standards on Chinese companies that want to join foreign stock exchanges.

The announcement, at a time when Beijing is tightening control over technology industries, is a potential hurdle for Chinese entrepreneurs who have raised billions of dollars abroad. It comes after ride-hailing service Didi Global Inc. was ordered to stop signing up new users and remove its app from online stores while it increases security for customer information.

The Kospi in Seoul retreated 0.6% to 3,285.34 while the S&P-ASX 200 in Sydney gained 0.9% to 7,326.90.

India's Sensex opened 0.2% higher at 52,948.94. New Zealand, Singapore and Jakarta declined.

On Wall Street, the S&P lost 0.2% to 4,343.54 on Tuesday, led by losses for banks and energy companies. The index is up 15.6% for the year.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6% to 34,577.37. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.2% to 14,663.64.

The ISM purchasing managers' index fell to 60.1 from May's record 64.0 on a 100-point scale on which numbers...