By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were mostly down on Wednesday morning, thanks to the continuous impact from a megacap technology selloff that weighed on U.S. shares overnight.

Japan’s fell 0.96% by 9:26 PM ET (1:26 AM GMT) and South Korea’s fell 0.93%.

Australia saw a jump of 1.04% in the index, and markets were reopened after holidays.

Hong Kong’s fell 0.77%.

China’s was down 0.45% and the was down 0.44%.

U.S. shares closed on an upward trend, however, in a sign that they could claw back some of the previous session’s losses. U.S. Treasuries showed little movement.

The U.S. Index of Chinese Shares also dropped due to regulatory tightening and economic risks that are weighing on investor sentiment. However, the People’s Bank of China is expected to add more stimulus to boost the economic recovery in 2022.

As the year ends, investors took advantage of an 17% increase in global equity prices to secure some profit. But central banks’ monetary policy tightening, China’s outlook, and COVID-19 remain key risks in 2022, even as the evidence suggests that the omicron COVID-19 variant is milder than first thought.

“We are pretty constructive going into 2022… we’re having fits and starts related to this omicron of course. This will create maybe demand delayed but not destroyed,” Northern Trust Katie Nixon, Chief Investment Officer at Wealth Management told Bloomberg.

Nixon said that China needs to take stronger policies in order to boost growth in the future and to reignite investor interest in emerging market equities.

Investors remained cautious even as the markets closed for trading on 2021 and 2022.

“We’re sober about potential headwinds that still could be coming, even the rest of this year, but early in 2022; the Fed is going to be raising rates, that will change things for the markets,” Allspring Global Investments head of active equity Ann Miletti told Bloomberg.

However, Miletti also struck a more positive note, saying, “we are also hopeful because as you look at a lot of the economic data, it remains strong.”

Investors are awaiting the U.S. data figure on Thursday.