Stocks in Asia were mixed on Friday as investors awaited the key monthly US employment report and subsequent comments due from US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell later in the day.
Japanese shares erased losses, although the TOPIX posted its biggest weekly drop since August, and Hong Kong equities dropped.
South Korea was little changed and Australia was modestly higher.
Earlier, the S&P 500 Index rose the most in a month after climbing back from a drop of more than 1 percent sparked by the weakest reading on the US services sector in three years. Market pricing for a Fed interest-rate cut at the next meeting climbed.
This week’s slew of poor data confirmed that the global economy is struggling for traction, and went some way to validating concerns that the weakness might be seeping from the manufacturing sector into consumer sentiment, as the US-China trade dispute continues.
That is also driving bets that the Fed will pump more stimulus into the economy this year.
The US Department of Labor’s report, released after markets closed in East Asia, showed that non-farm payrolls last month increased by 136,000 and the unemployment rate dropped to a 50-year low, but manufacturing payrolls declined for the first time in six months.
“Markets are starting to reflect an increase in odds that we’re going into a global recession,” Brandywine Global Investment Management LLC portfolio manager Jack McIntyre told Bloomberg Television. “We’re already in a global manufacturing recession. The question is whether that leaks into the service sector and then eventually into the consumer sector. But we’re not there yet.”
The weighted index on the Taiwan Stock Exchange rose 18.57 points, or 0.17 percent, to close at 10,894.48, up 0.6 percent for the week.
Equity markets in China remained shut amid a week-long holiday.
Hong Kong shares on Friday fell to one-month lows, after Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) invoked colonial-era emergency powers for the first time in more than 50 years in fresh efforts to quell escalating violence.
At the close of trade, the Hang Seng Index was down 1.11 percent at 25,821.03, down 0.5 percent for the week, its third weekly loss.
The Hang Seng China Enterprises Index fell 0.7 percent on Friday.
The sub-index of the Hang Seng tracking energy shares dipped 1.4 percent, the IT sector lost 0.2 percent, the financial sector fell 1.2 percent and the property sector lost 0.6 percent.
The market slipped in afternoon trade to its lowest level since Sept. 3, down 1.9 percent on the day, as local media reported the government would use emergency powers to enact a ban on face masks, effective yesterday.
The TOPIX on Friday rose 0.23 percent, paring its weekly losses to 1.95 percent.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index added 0.4 percent, but was down 3 percent for the week.
South Korea’s KOSPI lost 0.6 percent and was down 1.4 percent for the week.
India’s NIFTY 50 fell 1.2 percent, bringing its weekly decline to 3 percent.
The Jakarta Stock Exchange Composite Index rose 0.4 percent, but was down 2.2 percent for the week.
The Philippine Stock Exchange Index rose 2 percent, paring its weekly losses to 1.5 percent.
Additional reporting by CNA and staff writer
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy