Local Shares Plunge As Mainland Data, Tech Weigh

Hong Kong led losses in the region on Friday, after the mainland's factory activity figures came in worse than expected, and a tech slide added to the woes.

Despite a positive lead from Wall Street with the S&P closing at another record high, Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index began the last trading of the month lower and went further south during the day, losing more than 600 points at one stage, before closing down 578 points, or nearly two percent, at 28,724, on turnover of HK$125.8 billion.

For the week, local shares gave up one percent, but they still logged a one percent rise for the month.

AIA dived 4.2 percent to become the biggest blue-chip loser of the day.

It was a bad day for tech as well, after mainland regulators issued a statement saying they have summoned and warned some of the countries' biggest companies offering online financial services to comply with antitrust rules. Meituan tumbled 3.6 percent. Xiaomi retreated 2.2 percent. Tencent gave up 1.3 percent.

But PetroChina bucked the trend and jumped 2.5 percent to become the winner on the benchmark, after the oil giant reported its best first quarter profit in seven years.

Two major British banks listed in Hong Kong also continued their climb. HSBC put on 1.1 percent. Standard Chartered rallied 2.2 percent.

Across the border, the Shanghai Composite index and the blue-chip CSI300 index each declined 0.8 percent. And the Shenzhen Composite closed 0.3 percent lower.

Elsewhere in the region, Japan's Nikkei the Kospi in South Korea and Australia's ASX200 slipped 0.8 percent. Taiwan and Singapore were little changed.