S&P 500 ends winning streak overnight on Wall Street

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific looked set for opening declines on Thursday after the S&P 500 on Wall Street snapped its two-day winning streak overnight.

Futures pointed to a lower open for Japanese stocks. The Nikkei futures contract in Chicago was at 28,785 while its counterpart in Osaka was at 28,730. That compared against the Nikkei 225’s last close at 28,874.89.

Australian stocks also looked poised to fall at the open, with the SPI futures contract at 7,170, versus the S&P/ASX 200’s last close at 7,298.50.

Overnight stateside, the S&P 500 slipped 0.11% to 4,241.84, ending a two-day winning streak. Still, the index sits 0.4% from an all-time high. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 71.34 points to 33,945.59 while the Nasdaq Composite rose 0.13% to 14,271.73.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 91.802 after an earlier recovery from below 91.7.

The Japanese yen traded at 110.97 per dollar, having weakened earlier this week from below 110 against the greenback. The Australian dollar changed hands at $0.7574, above levels below $0.752 seen earlier in the week.