Stock market today: Asian shares slip, echoing Wall Street's weak start to 2024

TOKYO (AP) — Asian stocks slipped on Thursday, tracking a weak start to 2024 on Wall Street as Japan’s markets reopened.

The mood was somber in Tokyo as the market reopened from the New Year holidays with a moment of silence instead of a celebratory New Year's ring of the bell after a major earthquake Monday left at least 77 people dead and dozens missing.

Dark-suited officials bowed their heads in a ceremony that usually features women clad in colorful kimonos. Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.5% to 33,288.29.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed 0.4% to 16,574.36 and the Shanghai Composite index sank 0.4% to 2,946.15.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.4% to 7,494.10. South Korea's Kospi declined 0.8% to 2,586.02. India's Sensex, however, climbed 0.6%.

Stocks fell on Wall Street on Wednesday, as the slow start to the year there stretched into a second day.

The S&P 500 lost 0.8% to 4,704.81, though it remains within 2% of its record set exactly two years ago. The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.8%, from its own record to 37,430.19. The Nasdaq composite led the market lower with a drop of 1.2%, to 14,592.21.

Some of last year’s biggest winners again gave back some of their gains to weigh on the market. Tesla fell 4% after more than doubling last year, for example. It and the other six “Magnificent 7” Big Tech stocks responsible for the majority of Wall Street’s returns last year have regressed some following their tremendous runs.

A couple of reports released Wednesday morning indicated the overall economy may be slowing from its strong growth last summer, which the Federal Reserve hopes will keep a lid on inflation. The risk is it might slow too much.

One report showed U.S. employers were advertising nearly 8.8 million job openings at the end of November,...