Asia markets traded mixed on Friday following sharp declines in U.S. stocks overnight as a dire quarterly warning from Apple stoked fears of a slowdown in the global economy.
Japan's Nikkei 225 dropped 2.68 percent in afternoon trade while the Topix index fell around 1.9 percent, with almost all sectors seeing declines. Japanese conglomerate Softbank fell about 3.3 percent and Fast Retailing, the company behind the Uniqlo chain of apparel stores, declined nearly 6 percent. Stocks in Japan were closed on Wednesday and Thursday for holidays.
The Chinese mainland markets rebounded strongly after an earlier slip. The Shanghai composite bounced about 1.81 percent higher while the Shenzhen composite and Shenzhen component jumped 2.24 percent and 2.409 percent, respectively. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index extended gains to rise 1.3 percent.
The positive moves in China came after the country's commerce ministry announced that vice ministerial level trade talks with the U.S. would be held on Jan. 7-8.
The development on the trade front was also bolstered by positive data from China's services sector. The Caixin/Markit services purchasing managers' index jumped to a six-month high of 53.9 in December, rising from 53.8 in the previous month. The figure was significantly higher than the 50.0 mark which separates expansion from contraction.
The data came days after China reported a decline in its factory activity for December.
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