Shares in Asia are mostly lower after Wall Street recorded its worst week since the pandemic began in 2020
BANGKOK – Shares in Asia were mostly lower on Monday after Wall Street reported its worst week since the pandemic began in 2020.
Benchmarks declined in Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul and Sydney but rose in Shanghai. US futures were higher.
Investors are becoming increasingly concerned about how aggressively the Federal Reserve, which holds a policy meeting this week, may act to quell rising inflation.
Historically low rates, called quantitative easing, or QE, have helped support the broader market as the economy absorbed a sharp hit from the pandemic in 2020 and then recovered over the past two years.
ING economists Nicolas Mapa and Robert Cornell said: “The FOMC (Fed) meeting dominates the macro calendar this week and with the announcement of the end of QE and imminent rate hikes, risk sentiment is likely to remain on the hesitant side.” Is.” Vaccination.
Some economists believe the US central bank needs to move faster to cushion rising prices. US consumer prices rose 7% in December from a year earlier, the biggest increase in nearly four decades.
Rising costs have raised concerns that consumers will start reducing spending due to the continued pressure on their wallets. Also, there is a danger of slowing the recovery from the crisis due to the outbreak of the Omicron type of corona virus.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index fell 0.1% to 27,494.40, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong was down 0.9% at 24,735.70. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.5% to 7,142.10 and India’s Sensex fell 0.9% to 58,482.15.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 1.4% to 2,794.26 on heavy selling by big technology companies such as Samsung and SK Hynix.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.2% to 3,529.63.
On Friday, the benchmark S&P 500 fell 1.9% to 4,397.94, falling 5.7% for the week in its worst weekly loss since March 2020.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index fell 2.7% to 13,768.92. It has fallen for four weeks in a row and is now down more than 10% from its most recent high, hailing Wall Street as a market correction.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.3% to 34,265.37.
Peloton grew 11.7% after the maker of exercise bikes and treadmills said fiscal second-quarter revenue would outpace previous estimates. The stock plunged the day before CNBC reported Peloton was temporarily halting production of exercise equipment to stem the decline in sales.
With investors expecting the Fed to start raising rates as soon as its March policy meeting, shares in valuable tech companies and other expensive growth stocks are now looking relatively less attractive.
Technology and communications stocks were among the biggest drags on the market on Friday. Streaming video service Netflix posted a 21.8% drop after delivering another quarter of disappointing subscriber growth. Disney, which is trying to grow its subscriber base for its streaming service, fell 6.9%.
Treasury yields have declined as investors turn to safer investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury was steady at 1.78% on Monday.
The Fed’s benchmark short-term interest rate is currently in the 0% to 0.25% range. According to CME Group’s Fed Watch tool, investors now have about a 70% chance that the Fed will raise at least one percentage point by the end of the year.
In other trade, US benchmark crude oil rose 63 cents to $85.77 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Friday, it rose 41 cents to $85.14 a barrel.
Brent crude, the basis for international oil pricing, rose 72 cents to $88.61 a barrel.
The US dollar rose from 113.68 yen to 113.89 Japanese yen. The euro fell from $1.1346 to $1.1329.
