Asian shares fell on Friday, extending their biggest monthly drop since the height of global COVID-19 lockdowns in March last year due to lingering investor concern over regulatory crackdowns in China on the education, property and tech sectors.
Losses grew even after reassurances from Chinese regulators and official media helped to soothe investors’ nerves a day earlier, and following indications from the US Federal Reserve that its bond-buying program would remain unchanged for now.
A continuing outbreak of the Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 in China’s Jiangsu Province also weighed on the mood on Friday.
“It’s clear investors are very rattled by the regulatory crackdown,” said Michael Frazis, portfolio manager at Frazis Capital Partners in Sydney, adding that the market continues to face other near-term pressure.
“You will have talk about tapering, and you do have a lot of coronavirus beneficiaries which are largely in the tech sector. [Earnings] growth will be slow, and they will be reporting numbers off of very high bases for this time last year... We expect tech indices to be challenged in the near term, but we’re very optimistic over the medium and long term.”
On Friday, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.33 percent, taking its losses for the month to more than 7 percent.
In Taipei, the TAIEX ended down 155.40 points, or 0.89 percent, at 17,247.41, after moving between 17,237.67 and 17,429.01. Turnover totaled NT$535.965 billion (US$19.16 billion). The index dropped 1.85 percent from a week earlier.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 dipped 1.8 percent to 27,283.59, its 11th straight month of declines on the last trading day in the month. For the week, it lost 0.96 percent. The broader TOPIX dropped 1.37 percent to 1,901.08, posting a weekly decline of 0.17 percent.
The Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.42 percent to 3,397.36, diving 4.31 percent from a week earlier.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.35 percent to 25,961.03, losing 4.98 percent on the week.
South Korea’s KOSPI declined 1.24 percent to 3,202.32, posting a weekly drop of 1.6 percent, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.33 percent to 7,392.6, dipping 0.02 percent from a week earlier.
The declines in Asia came despite robust US earnings and forecasts, as well as strong second-quarter economic growth figures, that helped to lift Wall Street to record intraday highs on Thursday.
In the second quarter, the US economy grew past levels seen before the COVID-1`9 pandemic, helped by rising vaccination numbers and government aid, although the expansion fell short of expectations and rising infections are clouding the outlook for the third quarter.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
Prices of gasoline and diesel products at domestic gas stations are to fall NT$0.2 and NT$0.1 per liter respectively this week, even though international crude oil prices rose last week, CPC Corp, Taiwan (台灣中油) and Formosa Petrochemical Corp (台塑石化) said yesterday. International crude oil prices continued rising last week, as the US Energy Information Administration reported a larger-than-expected drop in US commercial crude oil inventories, CPC said in a statement. Based on the company’s floating oil price formula, the cost of crude oil rose 2.38 percent last week from a week earlier, it said. News that US President Donald Trump plans a “secondary
RSS