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
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
On Ireland’s blustery western seaboard, researchers are gleefully flying giant kites — not for fun, but in the hope of generating renewable electricity and sparking a “revolution” in wind energy. “We use a kite to capture the wind and a generator at the bottom of it that captures the power,” said Padraic Doherty of Kitepower, the Dutch firm behind the venture. At its test site in operation since September 2023 near the small town of Bangor Erris, the team transports the vast 60-square-meter kite from a hangar across the lunar-like bogland to a generator. The kite is then attached by a
Foxconn Technology Co (鴻準精密), a metal casing supplier owned by Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), yesterday announced plans to invest US$1 billion in the US over the next decade as part of its business transformation strategy. The Apple Inc supplier said in a statement that its board approved the investment on Thursday, as part of a transformation strategy focused on precision mold development, smart manufacturing, robotics and advanced automation. The strategy would have a strong emphasis on artificial intelligence (AI), the company added. The company said it aims to build a flexible, intelligent production ecosystem to boost competitiveness and sustainability. Foxconn
Leading Taiwanese bicycle brands Giant Manufacturing Co (巨大機械) and Merida Industry Co (美利達工業) on Sunday said that they have adopted measures to mitigate the impact of the tariff policies of US President Donald Trump’s administration. The US announced at the beginning of this month that it would impose a 20 percent tariff on imported goods made in Taiwan, effective on Thursday last week. The tariff would be added to other pre-existing most-favored-nation duties and industry-specific trade remedy levy, which would bring the overall tariff on Taiwan-made bicycles to between 25.5 percent and 31 percent. However, Giant did not seem too perturbed by the
RSS