China markets quickly rebound after a turbulent morning

Stocks in Asia were mixed on Friday October 19th after China’s GDP growth for the third quarter of 2018 came in below expectations.

After a turbulent morning, Greater China markets rebounded strongly, following a series of measures by China’s securities regulator to support the struggling stock market.

The Shanghai composite surged 2.58% to close at around 2,550.47, and the Shenzhen composite bounced 2.582% to end the trading day at about 1,263.81. Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.56% in afternoon trade.

A selloff in the mainland Chinese markets had occurred during the previous session on Thursday, with the Shanghai seeing its lowest point since November 2014 on Thursday morning.

In South Korea, the Kospi also saw a recovery from earlier losses, rising by 0.37% to close at 2,156.26.

Over in Japan, however, the Nikkei 225 slipped 0.56% to close at 22,532.08, while the Topix index declined by 0.69% to end the trading week at 1,692.85.

Down Under, the ASX 200 recovered from most of its earlier losses but still closed slightly lower at 5,939.5, with the heavily weighted financial subindex seeing gains of 0.43%.

Shares of most Australian banks saw gains, with the exception of National Australia Bank, which saw a decline of 0.27%. NAB’s CEO Andrew Thorburn had earlier announced that about 300 of its staff had been fired or left the company following internal investigations into wrongdoing.