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
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],”
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
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