Asian stock markets on Friday followed Wall Street higher after a US Federal Reserve official raised hopes the US central bank might not step up its anti-inflation fight as much as feared.
Taipei, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Tokyo advanced.
Wall Street on Thursday rose for the first time in three days after Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic expressed support for raising the Fed’s key lending rate less than many investors had been forecasting.
Photo: AP
Bostic said that the Fed might be able to suspend additional rate increases by mid-year, sooner than some expect.
He said he supported raising the Fed’s benchmark lending rate to a range of 5 to 5.25 percent.
That countered comments by other Fed officials who say rates might have to be raised more and stay elevated longer to extinguish inflation after job growth, consumer spending and price increases were stronger than expected.
Stocks advanced following those “dovish comments,” Anderson Alves of ActivTrades said in a report.
In Taipei, the TAIEX on Friday closed up 9.7 points, or 0.06 percent, at 15,608.42, up 0.67 percent from a week earlier.
The Shanghai Composite Index rose 17.74 points, or 0.5 percent, to close at 3,328.39, up 1.87 percent for the week, after a central bank official said that China’s vast real-estate industry was recovering from a slump triggered by debt controls that led to a wave of defaults by developers, rattling global financial markets.
People’s Bank of China Deputy Governor Pan Gongsheng (潘功勝) mentioned Evergrande Group, the global real-estate industry’s most heavily indebted developer, but he gave no update on government-supervised efforts to restructure its US$310 billion in debt.
China is today to begin its annual legislative session, where leaders are expected to affirm policies meant to spur economic growth after a slowdown worsened by COVID-19.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 1.6 percent to 27,934.01 after Japan’s unemployment rate edged lower in January. It was up 1.73 percent weekly. The broader TOPIX gained 1.25 percent to 2,019.52, rising 1.57 percent from the previous week.
The KOSPI in Seoul gained less than 0.17 percent to 2,432.07, up 0.35 percent weekly, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gained 0.68 percent to 20,567.54, up 2.79 percent from last week.
Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 added 28.2 points, or 0.39 percent, to 7,283.6, down 0.32 percent for the week, while India’s SENSEX rose 1.53 percent to 59,808.97, rising 0.58 percent weekly.
Bostic’s remark countered comments by other Fed officials who said rates might have to be raised more and stay elevated longer to extinguish stubborn inflation after job growth, consumer spending and price rises were stronger than expected.
Data on Thursday showed that fewer Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week despite interest rate hikes to cool business activity. That is positive for workers, but the Fed said it worries strong employment might fuel inflation.
Additional reporting by staff writer, with CNA
Taichung reported the steepest fall in completed home prices among the six special municipalities in the first quarter of this year, data compiled by Taiwan Realty Co (台灣房屋) showed yesterday. From January through last month, the average transaction price for completed homes in Taichung fell 8 percent from a year earlier to NT$299,000 (US$9,483) per ping (3.3m²), said Taiwan Realty, which compiled the data based on the government’s price registration platform. The decline could be attributed to many home buyers choosing relatively affordable used homes to live in themselves, instead of newly built homes in the city’s prime property market, Taiwan Realty
The government yesterday approved applications by Alphabet Inc’s Google to invest NT$27.08 billion (US$859.98 million) in Taiwan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a statement. The Department of Investment Review approved two investments proposed by Google, with much of the funds to be used for data processing and electronic information supply services, as well as inventory procurement businesses in the semiconductor field, the ministry said. It marks the second consecutive year that Google has applied to increase its investment in Taiwan. Google plans to infuse NT$25.34 billion into Charter Investments Ltd (特許投資顧問) through its Singapore-based subsidiary Fructan Holdings Singapore Pte Ltd, and
JET JUICE: The war on Iran’s secondary effects have seen fuel prices skyrocket, knocking flight schedules down to earth in return as airlines struggle with costs Airline passengers should brace for more irritation in the next few months as carriers worldwide cancel flights and ground planes to cope with stratospheric increases in jet-fuel prices. Dutch flag carrier KLM is the latest company to cut its schedule, saying on Thursday that it would scrap 80 return flights at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport in the coming month. That puts it in the same league as United Airlines Holdings Inc, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd, which have all pruned itineraries to mitigate costs. Global capacity for next month has been reduced by about 3 percentage points, with all
The US said it plans to help build a first-of-its-kind industrial hub in the Philippines to boost production of inputs crucial to US supply chains. The 4,000-acre hub is intended to be “a purpose-built platform for allied manufacturing” and “an investment acceleration hub where the specific industrial activities are shaped by market demand,” the US Department of State said on Thursday. The project — touted as an “economic security zone” — would be within the Luzon Economic Corridor, a flagship economic project backed by the US and Japan on the main Philippine island. The project was also described as “the first artificial intelligence
RSS