China-Breifing, Japan-Trade, Australia-Jobs

Most Asia-Pacific markets fell on Thursday after China’s housing ministry briefing failed to impress investors and sent the country’s real estate stocks plummeting.

The CSI 300 real estate index – which was up over 5% on Wednesday – fell 7%, while the benchmark CSI 300 fell 0.7%.

Hong Kong Hang Seng Index rose 0.5% after its chief executive made several policy announcements on Wednesday. The Hang Seng Mainland Properties Index fell 3.6%.

Japan Nikkei 225 slipped 0.69% to close at 38,911.19, while the broad-based Topix fell 0.11% to close at 2,687.83 after investors evaluated trading data from Japan.

Japan’s exports fell 1.7% in September compared with the same period a year earlier, surprising economists polled by Reuters who had expected growth of 0.5%. Exports, which contracted for the first time this year, fell sharply from a revised growth rate of 5.5% in August.

Import growth in September was 2.1%, falling short of economists’ expectations of 3.2% growth. The value was below August’s growth of 2.3%.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.12% to end at 8,355.9.

Australia’s unemployment rate was 4.1% in September, down slightly from a Reuters poll that had expected a rate of 4.2%, unchanged from August.

Australia’s labor force participation rate rose slightly to 67.2% in September, up 0.1 percentage point from August and forecasts.

South Korea’s Kospi closed marginally lower at 2,609.30, while the small-cap Kosdaq slipped 0.1% to 765.79.

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company reported earnings on Thursday after markets closed in Taiwan. Taiex gained 0.19% to close the day at 23,053.84.

Overnight, the Dow Jones in the US gained 337.28 points or 0.79% to close at 43,077.70.

The S&P 500 gained 0.47% to 5,842.47, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.28% to close at 18,367.08.

— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.