Asian stocks on Friday followed overnight losses in US peers as traders weighed the economic threat of virus restrictions against optimism about the efficacy of vaccines.
Chinese markets are in investors’ focus after China Evergrande Group (恆大集團) and Kaisa Group Holdings Ltd (佳兆業集團) officially defaulted on their US dollar debt.
Evergrande shares fell about 2 percent. Kaisa’s shares, which are also traded in Hong Kong, remained suspended.
The TAIEX fell 0.49 percent to 17,826.26 points on Friday, but added 0.73 percent for the week.
Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 on Friday dropped 0.4 percent, paring its weekly gain to 1.6 percent.
The KOSPI in Seoul declined 0.6 percent on Friday, but rose 1.4 percent for the week.
Tokyo stocks closed lower on Friday after Wall Street snapped a three-day rally and investors awaited a key US inflation report due later in the day.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index fell 1 percent, or 287.70 points, to 28,437.77, for a weekly gain of 1.46 percent.
The broader TOPIX slipped 0.77 percent, or 15.31 points, to 1,975.48 for a weekly gain of 0.9 percent.
The Hang Seng Index fell 1.1 percent to 23,995.72, while the China Enterprises Index lost 0.9 percent to 8,578.33 points.
For the week, the Hang Seng Index edged 1 percent higher, while the China Enterprises Index added 1.5 percent.
Investors are mulling the cost to contain the Omicron strain of SARS-CoV-2 amid mounting concern it would crimp the economic rebound. A study has found Omicron is 4.2 times more transmissible than the Delta variant in its early stages.
The US Department of Labor on Friday reported the most rapid inflation in nearly 40 years, with the consumer price index rising 6.8 percent last month from a year earlier.
The inflation gauge climbed 0.8 percent in October, exceeding forecasts and extending a trend of sizable increases that began earlier this year
“Various FOMC [Federal Open Market Committee] participants, including [Fed] Chair [Jerome] Powell, have signaled a hawkish shift in their policy stance, catalyzed by increasing discomfort with elevated inflation against a backdrop of robust growth and ongoing strengthening in labor markets conditions,” Morgan Stanley economists and strategists, including Ellen Zentner, wrote in a note on Thursday.
“We revise our Fed call and now expect the FOMC to begin raising rates in Sept. 2022 — two quarters earlier than our prior forecast,” they said.
KEEPING UP: The acquisition of a cleanroom in Taiwan would enable Micron to increase production in a market where demand continues to outpace supply, a Micron official said Micron Technology Inc has signed a letter of intent to buy a fabrication site in Taiwan from Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電) for US$1.8 billion to expand its production of memory chips. Micron would take control of the P5 site in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼) and plans to ramp up DRAM production in phases after the transaction closes in the second quarter, the company said in a statement on Saturday. The acquisition includes an existing 12 inch fab cleanroom of 27,871m2 and would further position Micron to address growing global demand for memory solutions, the company said. Micron expects the transaction to
Vincent Wei led fellow Singaporean farmers around an empty Malaysian plot, laying out plans for a greenhouse and rows of leafy vegetables. What he pitched was not just space for crops, but a lifeline for growers struggling to make ends meet in a city-state with high prices and little vacant land. The future agriculture hub is part of a joint special economic zone launched last year by the two neighbors, expected to cost US$123 million and produce 10,000 tonnes of fresh produce annually. It is attracting Singaporean farmers with promises of cheaper land, labor and energy just over the border.
US actor Matthew McConaughey has filed recordings of his image and voice with US patent authorities to protect them from unauthorized usage by artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, a representative said earlier this week. Several video clips and audio recordings were registered by the commercial arm of the Just Keep Livin’ Foundation, a non-profit created by the Oscar-winning actor and his wife, Camila, according to the US Patent and Trademark Office database. Many artists are increasingly concerned about the uncontrolled use of their image via generative AI since the rollout of ChatGPT and other AI-powered tools. Several US states have adopted
A proposed billionaires’ tax in California has ignited a political uproar in Silicon Valley, with tech titans threatening to leave the state while California Governor Gavin Newsom of the Democratic Party maneuvers to defeat a levy that he fears would lead to an exodus of wealth. A technology mecca, California has more billionaires than any other US state — a few hundred, by some estimates. About half its personal income tax revenue, a financial backbone in the nearly US$350 billion budget, comes from the top 1 percent of earners. A large healthcare union is attempting to place a proposal before
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