Asia-Pacific stocks fall as oil prices drop more than 2%

SINGAPORE — Shares in Asia-Pacific fell on Thursday, with Australia’s April trade surplus higher than expected.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index led regional losses with a 1.29% decline, with Alibaba shares falling 3%.

In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite slipped 0.32% while the Shenzhen Component was slightly lower.

The Nikkei 225 in Japan lost 0.21% while the Topix index fell 0.58%. The South Korean Kospi fell 0.97%.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.92%.

MSCI’s broadest Asia Pacific ex-Japan equity index traded down 0.98%.

Australia’s trade surplus widened to 10.495 billion Australian dollars ($7.525 billion) in April, data from the country’s Bureau of Statistics showed on Thursday. That was more than the A$9.3 billion surplus predicted in a Reuters poll.

After the publication of the data, the The Aussie dollar changed hands at $0.7169, still off the levels above $0.72 seen recently.

Overnight on Wall Street, the S&P 500 fell 0.75% to 4,101.23. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 176.89 points, or 0.54%, to 32,813.23. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.72% to 11,994.46.

The The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was at 102.562 after a recent jump below 102.

The Japanese yen was trading at 130.09 to the dollar, weaker from levels below 128 seen against the greenback earlier this week.