Asian markets settled almost lower on Friday, despite decent gains on Wall Street overnight on expectations of a softening in the US Federal Reserve's interest rate hikes. Chinese shares declined after Chinese leaders acknowledged that the official 5.5 percent growth target for this year won’t be met, while Investors are cautiously focused on regional tensions over China’s stance on Taiwan after President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping spoke for more than two hours on Thursday. Hong Kong shares dropped as technology stocks and real estate stocks came under pressure. Hang Seng heavyweights Alibaba and Meituan fell more than 5% each. Moreover, Japanese shares closed slightly lower with the Japanese yen strengthened sharply against the US dollar as central bank policy in Japan diverged from the US Fed’s.
Asian Indices | Last Trade | Change in Points | Change in % |
Shanghai Composite | 3,253.24 | -29.34 | -0.89 |
Hang Seng | 20,156.51 | -466.17 | -2.26 |
Jakarta Composite | 6,951.12 | -5.70 | -0.08 |
KLSE Composite | 1,492.23 | 1.03 | 0.07 |
Nikkei 225 | 27,801.64 | -13.84 | -0.05 |
Straits Times | 3,211.56 | -9.09 | -0.28 |
KOSPI Composite | 2,451.50 | 16.23 | 0.67 |
Taiwan Weighted | 15,000.07 | 108.17 | 0.73 |
