The Asian equity benchmarks ended mostly in red on Thursday, on overnight news that European Central Bank has decided to suspend the collateral waiver facility for Greek banks dampening investor sentiment. However, China’s central bank cut the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves, the first industry-wide cut in more than two and half years, as it increased efforts to shore up flagging growth in the world’s second-largest economy. The move, which came less than three months after China also cut interest rates for the first time in over two years, was widely expected by investors, who had bet that monetary policy had to be further loosened to lift economic growth from 24-year low. Indonesian GDP remained unchanged at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.01% in January compared to the preceding month. Southeast Asia’s biggest economy has been slowing in recent years as the price of its key commodity exports dropped owing to weakening demand from regional powerhouse China and other major markets. Taiwanese CPI fell to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of -0.94%, from 0.61% in the preceding quarter.
Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
Shanghai Composite | 3,136.53 | -37.60 | -1.18 |
Hang Seng | 24,765.49 | 85.73 | 0.35 |
Jakarta Composite | 5,279.90 | -35.39 | -0.67 |
KLSE Composite | 1,803.21 | 0.19 | 0.01 |
Nikkei 225 | 17,504.62 | -174.12 | -0.98 |
Straits Times | 3,406.58 | -10.99 | -0.32 |
KOSPI Composite | 1,952.84 | -9.95 | -0.51 |
Taiwan Weighted | 9,512.05 | -1.87 | -0.02 |