Asian shares slipped on Friday as fears about the COVID-19 outbreak once again dominated financial markets.
The TAIEX fell 1.68 percent to 11,321.81 in Taipei, rising 0.26 percent from Thursday last week.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 dove 2.7 percent to finish at 20,749.75, down 1.9 percent weekly, while the TOPIX fell 2.9 percent to 1,471.46, down 2.6 percent for the week.
India’s SENSEX fell 2.32 percent on Friday, down 1.9 percent for the week, and the NIFTY 50 lost 2.5 percent for the day, also falling 1.9 percent weekly.
The Philippines Stock Exchange Index slipped 1.66 percent on Friday, down 0.3 percent for the week.
The Kuala Lumpur Composite Index on Friday fell 0.5 percent, virtually unchanged for the week.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 lost 2.8 percent to 6,216.20 on Friday, bringing its weekly loss to 3.5 percent.
South Korea’s KOSPI on Friday dropped 2.2 percent to 2,040.22, but was up 2.68 percent for the week.
The Shanghai Composite skidded 1.2 percent to 3,034.51, jumping 5.4 percent for the week. The index has rallied nearly 12 percent since scraping bottom on Feb. 3.
The Hang Seng Index (HSI) fell 2.3 percent to 26,146.67 on Friday, while the China Enterprises Index (HSCE) fell 2.5%, to 10,456.93 points.
For the week, the HSI added 0.1 percent, while HSCE, an index tracking Hong Kong-listed mainland firms, gained 1.5 percent as investors welcomed Beijing’s latest supportive measures and expected further stimulus to bolster China’s economy.
Friday’s declines came after a sharp selloff overnight on Wall Street, as large swings in the market continued amid uncertainty over the spread of the coronavirus and its economic fallout.
Vishnu Varathan, head of economics and strategy at Mizuho Bank Ltd in Singapore, said the potential damage from the virus was twofold, with the initial effect coming from a direct impact on the economy.
“One succumbs to the sheer fear of community spread, prospects of deep economic impact from a sharp drop-off in demand for travel and seizures in supply chains,” Varathan said in a commentary.
“The other is a strain that thrives on hopes of stimulus; be it frantic central bank rate cuts, the lull of liquidity infusions or more targeted fiscal offsets to provide pain relief,” he said.
LACK OF CLARITY
“All we know now is that we don’t really understand what’s going to happen next,” Marketfield Asset Management LLC chairman and chief executive officer Michael Shaoul told Bloomberg TV.
“It’s probably four, six, eight weeks before we’re going to have any useful information as to what the trajectory of the virus is and what the actual economic fallout looks like,” he said.
Risk assets have whipsawed this week, with traders on edge amid a rise in virus cases, governments extending quarantines and travel restrictions, and a slew of company warnings on the impact to earnings.
Global equities have recovered some of the recent losses, but they still remain about 10 percent below the all-time high reached last month.
The vicious swings are likely to continue as long as the number of new infections continues to accelerate, analysts and professional investors have said.
Additional reporting by staff writer
CHIP RACE: Three years of overbroad export controls drove foreign competitors to pursue their own AI chips, and ‘cost US taxpayers billions of dollars,’ Nvidia said China has figured out the US strategy for allowing it to buy Nvidia Corp’s H200s and is rejecting the artificial intelligence (AI) chip in favor of domestically developed semiconductors, White House AI adviser David Sacks said, citing news reports. US President Donald Trump on Monday said that he would allow shipments of Nvidia’s H200 chips to China, part of an administration effort backed by Sacks to challenge Chinese tech champions such as Huawei Technologies Co (華為) by bringing US competition to their home market. On Friday, Sacks signaled that he was uncertain about whether that approach would work. “They’re rejecting our chips,” Sacks
NATIONAL SECURITY: Intel’s testing of ACM tools despite US government control ‘highlights egregious gaps in US technology protection policies,’ a former official said Chipmaker Intel Corp has tested chipmaking tools this year from a toolmaker with deep roots in China and two overseas units that were targeted by US sanctions, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter. Intel, which fended off calls for its CEO’s resignation from US President Donald Trump in August over his alleged ties to China, got the tools from ACM Research Inc, a Fremont, California-based producer of chipmaking equipment. Two of ACM’s units, based in Shanghai and South Korea, were among a number of firms barred last year from receiving US technology over claims they have
It is challenging to build infrastructure in much of Europe. Constrained budgets and polarized politics tend to undermine long-term projects, forcing officials to react to emergencies rather than plan for the future. Not in Austria. Today, the country is to officially open its Koralmbahn tunnel, the 5.9 billion euro (US$6.9 billion) centerpiece of a groundbreaking new railway that will eventually run from Poland’s Baltic coast to the Adriatic Sea, transforming travel within Austria and positioning the Alpine nation at the forefront of logistics in Europe. “It is Austria’s biggest socio-economic experiment in over a century,” said Eric Kirschner, an economist at Graz-based Joanneum
OPTION: Uber said it could provide higher pay for batch trips, if incentives for batching is not removed entirely, as the latter would force it to pass on the costs to consumers Uber Technologies Inc yesterday warned that proposed restrictions on batching orders and minimum wages could prompt a NT$20 delivery fee increase in Taiwan, as lower efficiency would drive up costs. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi made the remarks yesterday during his visit to Taiwan. He is on a multileg trip to the region, which includes stops in South Korea and Japan. His visit coincided the release last month of the Ministry of Labor’s draft bill on the delivery sector, which aims to safeguard delivery workers’ rights and improve their welfare. The ministry set the minimum pay for local food delivery drivers at
RSS