[ad_1]
BANGKOK (AP) – Asian stocks fell on Friday, but Tokyo’s stock index extended its new year’s gains to trade well above $35,000, its highest since 1990.
U.S. futures fell slightly, and oil prices rose by more than $1 a barrel.
China reported a slight increase in exports and imports in December, suggesting global demand may be recovering after the central bank halted recent anti-inflation rate hikes, but economic recovery remains uneven It is shown that.
Consumer prices fell 0.3% in December, the third consecutive month of decline, and a sign that demand remains weak. The producer price index, which measures the prices that factories charge wholesalers, fell 2.7%, the 15th straight month of declines.
Part of that growth was driven by a nearly 64% increase in car exports in 2023, reaching 4.1 million passenger cars, the China Automobile Manufacturers Association reported on Thursday.
Thursday’s U.S. inflation report forced some investors to postpone their expectations for when the Federal Reserve would cut long-awaited interest rates, dampening buying interest.
However, the Nikkei Stock Average in Tokyo rose 1.5% to 35,577 yen.11, marking the week’s biggest rise since 1990. This was the beginning of an era of sluggish growth and Japan’s asset bubble began to deflate.
Stocks rose 2.1% on Friday as the yen’s weakness against the dollar boosted Japanese exporters such as industrial robot maker Fanuc.
Taiwan’s Thai Ex fell 0.2% to 17,512.83 on the eve of presidential and legislative elections that will test the autonomous island’s relations with both Beijing and Washington.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index pared early gains and fell 0.5% to 16,212.11, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.2% to 2,881.98.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.1% to 2,537.17, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index also fell 0.1% to 7,501.40.
In Taiwan, stock prices rose on the eve of the presidential election. Markets in India and Thailand also rose.
Wall Street spooked Thursday as updates on inflation raised questions about when the Federal Reserve would begin cutting interest rates that investors crave.
The S&P 500 fell 0.1% to 4,780.24. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose less than 0.1% to $37,711.02, and the Nasdaq Composite Index rose less than 0.1% to 14,970.19.
After Citigroup detailed a list of charges against its fourth-quarter results related to everything from Argentina’s difficult economy to a previously disclosed special assessment by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. It fell 1.8%.
Hertz Global Holdings expects to record a decline in its underlying profit metrics in the fourth quarter, as it announced it would sell about 20,000 electric vehicles to reduce its EV fleet by a third. It fell 4.3%.
Stocks had soared to record highs on hopes that subdued inflation would persuade the Federal Reserve to cut rates sharply in 2024 and boost investment prices. Thursday morning’s inflation report showed that U.S. consumers paid an overall 3.4% higher price in December compared to the same month last year. That accelerated from November’s inflation rate of 3.1% and was slightly higher than economists expected.
But behind-the-scenes trends may have been a little more encouraging. Subtracting food and fuel prices, which can fluctuate widely from month to month, price increases from November to December were closer to what economists expected.
In the bond market, U.S. Treasury yields rose jaggedly in response to the inflation data. It sank Wednesday night into Thursday, then jumped right after the report was released, but then started yo-yoing. By late afternoon, stocks had fallen, helping the stock index recover much of its earlier losses.
The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury was steady at 3.98% early Friday morning. This is down from over 5% in October.
Early Friday morning, benchmark U.S. crude oil rose $1.50 a barrel to $73.52, or 2.1%. It rose 65 cents to $72.02 on Thursday. Brent crude, the international standard crude, rose $1.60 to $79.01 per barrel.
In currency trading, the dollar weakened from 145.28 yen to 145.24 yen. The euro fell from $1.0971 to $1.0966.
[ad_2]
Source link
