Asian stocks trailed hefty losses on Wall Street, where technology stocks faced a sharp sell off on profit taking last nigh after the enormous gains achieved since March’s trough.

The MSCI Asia-Pacific index excluding Japan slipped 0.92 percent today at 728.72, where Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 led the drop with a fall of 3.06 percent.

China’s CSI 300 index finished lower by 0.97 percent at 4,770.22. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index plunged 1.25 percent to 24,695.45.

South Korea’s Kospi index slipped 1.15 percent to 2,368.25, and Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slumped 1.11 percent to 23,205.43 points.

The sell off mania started overnight on Wall Street, as the heavy-tech Nasdaq index closed 5 percent down after sharp falls in the shares of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook.

Having a whopping rise of nearly 80 percent since March’s bottom, the Nasdaq has faced downside pressure on profit taking by investors.

U.S. equities experienced the worst drop in a month and the fiercest one-day slide since June on Thursday’s closing.

The S&P 500 index settled at 3,455.06, down 3.51 percent, and the Dow Jones lost 2.78 percent to end at 28,292.73.

Global shares may face more bearishness today as the awaited U.S. non-farm payrolls data may show that American employers created fewer than expected jobs last month.

The job-creation pace may ease to 1,375,000 in August after a robust 1,763,000 jobs created in July, while the unemployment rate may retreat to 9.8 percent from 10.2 percent, according to analysts’ forecasts to the U.S. NFP.

Investors are currently ignoring optimism after strong U.S. services and jobless claims data and hopes of having Covid-19 vaccine earlier than expected while preferring to close their trading positions until knowing the outcome of the U.S. jobs report.

The dollar index was little changed at 92.76 after rebounding this week from its lowest level in nearly two years.