Asian stocks on Friday followed Wall Street lower as fears spread that US interest rate hikes to fight inflation might stall economic growth.
Investors are worried whether the US Federal Reserve, which raised its key interest rate by half a percentage point on Wednesday, can cool inflation without tipping the US economy into recession. Traders were briefly encouraged by Fed chairman Jerome Powell’s comment that the Fed was not considering even bigger increases.
“Clearly, investors had second thoughts about the so-called ‘dovish hike’ from the Fed,” Rob Carnell, head of Asia-Pacific research at ING, wrote in a report.
The likelihood is “rate hikes coming thick and fast, but little if any prospect of a turn in inflation any time soon,” he wrote.
In Taiwan, the TAIEX dropped 287.92 points, or 1.72 percent, to 16,408.20. The index lost 1.11 percent over the week to post its second straight week of declines.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng plunged 3.81 percent to 20,001.96, down 5.16 percent on the week, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell 2.16 percent to 3,001.56, declining 1.49 percent weekly.
In Seoul, the KOSPI tumbled 1.23 percent to 2,644.51 and lost 0.86 percent on the week.
Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 lurched down 2.16 percent to 7,205.6, dropping 3.09 percent from a week earlier, while India’s SENSEX closed down 1.56 percent at 54,835.58, posting a weekly decline of 3.90 percent.
Japan bucked the trend as trading resumed after a holiday, with the Nikkei 225 increasing 0.69 percent to 27,003.56, up 1.14 from a week earlier, and the broader TOPIX rising 0.93 percent to 1,915.91 — a weekly gain of 1.99 percent.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA
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