BANGKOK (AP) – Shares fell on Friday in most Asian markets after China reported a sharper-than-expected rise in prices that could motivate authorities to act to cool inflation.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark rose after falling the day before. Shares declined in Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney and Seoul.
On Thursday, stocks closed moderately on Wall Street, high by gains from large tech companies benefiting from lower bond yields. But an increase in unemployment claims affected the buying enthusiasm a bit.
China reported that consumer prices rose in March due to a jump in fuel prices, while production prices rose at the fastest pace in more than four years.
The consumer price index rose 0.4% in March compared to the 0.2% drop in February, as fuel prices jumped almost 12% from the previous year. Prices paid by manufacturers increased by 4.4% over the previous year.
Inflation reflects rising demand as China’s economy leads the global recovery from the pandemic. Concerns that stronger growth could spur inflation that regulators in many major economies would cool, in part by raising interest rates, have been outpacing markets in recent months.
In addition, a new round of US sanctions, this time against seven Chinese supercomputer manufacturers, has revived concern over trade friction between the two largest economies, said Jeffrey Halley of Oanda.
“Asian markets are once again taking a more cautious stance today. Geopolitics is never far from the surface, even if it is often lost with the global noise of recovery, ”Halley said in a report.
The Shanghai SHCOMP Composite Index,
lost 1% and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong HSI,
fell 1.3%. S & P / ASX 200 XJO from Australia,
gave up 0.2% and the Kospi 180721,
in Seoul it decreased by 0.3%.
The Japanese Nikkei 225 NIK,
increased by 0.2%.
Shares in Sony Corp. SONY,
increased 2.7% after the company signed an exclusive movie distribution deal with Netflix NFLX,
On Thursday, the S&P 500 SPX index,
gained 0.4% to 4,097.17, another record after records set on Monday and Wednesday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
gained 0.2% to 33,503.57. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, a very heavy technology,
rose 1% to 13,829.31.
Shares of small businesses, which have outperformed the overall market this year, also had a good display. The Russell 2000 RUT Index,
of smaller companies increased by 0.9% to 2,242.60. The index rose 13.6% so far this year, while the S&P 500, which tracks large companies, rose 9.1%.
Shares have benefited this week as bond yields, which were steadily rising, retreated from the highs affected earlier this month.
The performance of the US Treasury note at 10 years TMUBMUSD10Y,
which influences interest rates on mortgages and other loans, fell to 1.63% from 1.65% last Wednesday. It had reached 1.75% on Monday.
This decline in yields put some pressure on technology stocks, which have fallen in recent months as yields rose, making these stocks look expensive. The sector has also seen a hectic trade as investors allocate more money to companies that will benefit from the economic recovery.
Apple AAPL,
rose 1.9%, Microsoft MSFT,
gained 1.3% and Amazon AMZN,
added 0.6%.
Investors are cautiously optimistic about the economic recovery, especially in the United States, where vaccine distribution has been increasing and President Joe Biden has advanced the deadline for states to make doses available to all adults until April 19. .
But it is clear that recovery has a long way to go. The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week rose again last week, as many businesses remain closed or partially closed due to the pandemic.
Speaking to the International Monetary Fund on Thursday, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said several factors are putting the nation “on track to allow a complete reopening of the economy soon enough.”
In other commercial operations, US reference crude oil CL.1,
rose 11 cents to $ 59.71 a barrel in e-commerce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 17 cents on Thursday, to $ 59.60. Brent crude BRN00,
the international standard, fell 2 cents to $ 63.18.
The US dollar rose to 109.32 Japanese yen USDJPY,
from 109.25 yen. The EURUSD euro,
fell to $ 1.1904 from $ 1.1917.