Fading Euro-zone hopes drag markets in Asia on Friday

09 Dec 2011 Evaluate

Equity markets in Asia suffered brutal assaults in Friday trades, with Hang Seng being the leading laggard in the space amid discouraging developments from the European front. The European Union Summit in Brussels failed to give any indications to prop up the morale of investors across the globe. The European Central Bank slashed interest rates for the second time in a little more than a month, signaling that it wants to help slowing economies but poured cold water on hopes that it would step up bond purchase. The ECB’s move to bolster the region’s economy was also overshadowed as leaders were still deeply divided over key elements of their crisis strategy. The gloomy leads from Europe even led the investors to overlook encouraging US employment data which indicated that US jobless claims fell by 23,000 to 381,000 last week.

The benchmark in Japan sank around one and half percent on the back of disappointing third quarter GDP growth data which showed that the economy grew by an annualized 5.6% in the July-September quarter less than an initial estimate of 6%, dented by the strong yen and fears the eurozone crisis will weigh on a fragile post-quake recovery. Chinese shares traded with lowest losses in the space on encouraging Chinese inflation data which cooled to its slowest pace in 14 months in November.

Shanghai Composite declined 13.14 points or 0.56% to 2,316.68, Hang Seng got thrashed 424.21 points or 2.22% to 18,683.60, Jakarta Composite dived 27.52 points or 0.73% to 3,754.24, KLSE Composite plunged 14.56 points or 0.99% to 1,458.36, Nikkei 225 plummeted 122.89 points or 1.42% to 8,541.69, Straits Times sank 35.53 points or 1.30% to 2,692.78, Seoul Composite slumped 30.55 points or 1.60% to 1,881.84 and Taiwan Weighted shaved-off 88.29 points or 1.26% to 6,894.61.

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