Asia-Pacific stocks opened mixed

Stocks in Asia-Pacific were mixed in Friday trade after the Pentagon added more Chinese firms to a blacklist of alleged Chinese military companies.

Mainland Chinese stocks fell, with the Shanghai composite shed 0.35% while the Shenzhen component sat below the flatline. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was also down 0.16%.

China’s largest chipmaker Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp and oil producer CNOOC were among firms added to the blacklist. Trading in the Hong Kong-listed shares of SMIC was halted on the back of that news, with the stock last down more than 2% after 3 minutes of trading. CNOOC, or China National Offshore Oil Corp., also saw its Hong Kong-listed stock fall about 2.2%.

Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea’s Kospi led gains among the region’s major markets and jumped 1.36%.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 0.33% while the Topix was 0.16% lower.

Meanwhile, shares in Australia edged higher, as the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.41%. Australia’s retail turnover rose 1.4% month-on-month in October on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to figures from the country’s Bureau of Statistics.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.69%.