(Bloomberg) – Asian stocks fell for a fifth day after US stocks fell in line with the previous session, as concerns about US regional banks outweighed better-than-expected technology gains.
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The decline puts an indicator of Asia-Pacific stocks on course for the longest streak of daily losses this year, as stocks fell in Australia and faltered in Japan and China.
Futures contracts for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 both edged higher in Asia after Meta Platforms Inc.’s results beat analyst estimates and pushed shares up 11% in after-hours trading. Alphabet Inc. And Microsoft Corp. Positive Earnings this week pushed the Nasdaq 100 index higher on Wednesday.
In Asia, a record quarterly loss at Samsung Electronics Co.’s chipset division weighed on shares. Shares of Nomura Holdings Inc. also fell after the Japanese bank reported a drop in earnings. Earnings reports due today include BYD Co., the electric car maker, China Life Insurance Co. and Fujitsu Ltd.
Sylvia Sheng, multi-asset strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management, said the fund manager expects China’s economic recovery to impact corporate earnings in the coming months.
“We think that should pull through given how strong the recovery momentum was in the first quarter,” she said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
The yen remained in a tight range as the Bank of Japan began a two-day policy meeting, the first with Kazuo Ueda as governor. The dollar weakened against most of its Group of Ten peers.
Sovereign bonds edged higher in Asia as investors waited for US GDP and jobless claims to gauge the strength of the US economy. The Federal Reserve’s favorite indicator of inflation, the core PCE deflator, is also due on Friday.
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bank problems
The potential for tightening credit conditions linked to the banking turmoil could prompt the Fed to adjust the pace of its rate hikes, Krishna Guha, head of central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, wrote in a note, citing troubles at First Republic Bank. The US regional lender faces potential Fed borrowing restrictions.
“We cannot rule out that developments around the First Republic could play out in a way that FOMC skips May while signaling a June hike,” Guha said.
Elsewhere in the markets, oil rose after a decline on Wednesday, gold edged up slightly and bitcoin continued its climb.
Here are some of the key movements in the markets:
Shares
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S&P 500 futures were up 0.2% as of 12:11 p.m. Tokyo time. The S&P 500 fell 0.4%
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Nasdaq 100 futures were up 0.5%. The Nasdaq 100 rose 0.6%
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Japan’s Topix has hardly changed
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Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.4%
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Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.1%
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The Shanghai Composite rose 0.3%
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Euro Stoxx 50 futures down 0.3%
currencies
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The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index was little changed
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The euro was little changed at $1.1052
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The Japanese yen was little changed at 133.56 per dollar
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The offshore yuan was little changed at 6.9351 per dollar
cryptocurrencies
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Bitcoin surged 1.7% to $28,906.7
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Ether was up 1.8% to $1,900.01
Bind
raw materials
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West Texas Intermediate crude rose 0.2% to $74.42 a barrel
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Spot gold rose 0.5% to $1,998.83 an ounce
This story was created with the support of Bloomberg Automation.
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