Investing.com - Asian stocks continued to slide in morning trade on Friday. Japan and the U.S. is set to have a third round of bilateral economic dialogue in mid-November, Reuters reported citing Japanese government officials.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence will hold talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his deputy, Taro Aso and discuss issues including trade, economic policy and North Korea, the officials said.
The Nikkei 225 was down 0.6% by 9:40PM ET (01:40 GMT) as data from the labor ministry showed the countries’ workers' inflation-adjusted real wages fell 0.6% in August from a year earlier followed a revised 0.5% annual increase in July.
Meanwhile, household spending rose 2.8% in August from a year earlier, comparing with the market expectations for a 0.1% fall.
South Korea’s KOSPI slid 0.7% in morning trade as index heavyweight Samsung Electronics (KS:005930) Co Ltd announced its third-quarter operating profit likely rose by a fifth to a record high, in line with market expectations.
Samsung said in a filing that July-September profit likely gained 20.4% from the same period last year. The company will disclose detailed earnings in late October.
In China, markets remain closed for a week-long holiday. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index extended losses and traded 0.9% lower.
J.P. Morgan lowered its rating for Chinese equities to neutral from overweight as it believed the escalating trade war between the countries will further hurt China's economy next year.
"A full-blown trade war becomes our new base case scenario for 2019," emerging market strategist Pedro Martins Junior said in a note to clients. "There is no clear sign of mitigating confrontation between China and the US in the near term."
Separately, former Fed governor Kevin Warsh told CNBC in an interview on Thursday that relationship between the U.S. and China is "probably as poor as" it was before the Nixon administration opened up ties more than four decades ago.
"We're at the risk of a real cold war,” said Warsh, "The last 30 years we've been living and breathing globalization as if it's an inevitable force."
Down under, Australia’s ASX 200 rose 0.3%.