Mining stock falls dampen positive session for Asia equities - Financial Times

Early falls for both of Australia’s largest mining groups initially put a damper on an otherwise positive session in Sydney as shares in Tokyo and Hong Kong registered a minor rise in the Wednesday Asia session.

Australia’s two biggest mining groups were fighting to recover from falls in early trading. Rio Tinto was up 0.2 per cent, having climbed back from a fall of 1.4 per cent brought on by US fraud charges for allegedly trying to hide a multibillion-dollar business failure by inflating the value of coal assets in Mozambique.

BHP Billiton was down 0.4 per cent, pulling back from a fall as much as 1.5 per cent after the company’s latest quarterly operational review showed iron ore output had registered a slight fall from the previous year. The benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index was up 0.2 per cent.

In Tokyo, the Topix index was up 0.1 per cent, with a 0.4 per cent rise from consumer discretionary stocks offsetting a 0.1 per cent dip by industrials. Troubled metals conglomerate Kobe Steel fell as much as 4 per cent after the US Department of Justice on Tuesday asked it to submit documents related to a widening data falsification scandal.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up 0.1 per cent as the financials segment gained 0.3 per cent.