Asia report: Markets volatile as China follows Wall Street
China’s stocks rallied near the end of the week but still closed lower as government measures intended to lift the market waned.
Hang Seng
17,651.15
10:20 26/04/24
Nikkei 225
37,934.76
09:44 26/04/24
A late rally on Wall Street and speculation the US Federal Reserve was inching closer to a rate hike gave Chinese stocks a temporary boost.
The Shanghai Composite Index closed 1.13% lower at 3,663.725, while the ShenZhen Composite was down 0.82% at 2,110.622.
The two indices are at their lowest since August 2009.
Investors should tread cautiously going into the weekend, analysts at LCG warned, with Chinese manufacturing data due on Saturday. The Hong Kong Hang Seng index was down 0.56% to 24,636.28.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was relatively flat, closing up 0.30% as macro data offset market gains.
Japan’s Consumer Price Index edged up a little better than expected. Accendo Markets said this showed the Bank of Japan’s inflation target was some way off. The yen was at ¥ 124.25 against the dollar.
Accendo said despite super quantitative easing, low oil prices were likely to stifle inflation in Japan.
Down under the ASX closed up 0.5% at 5699.2 on a temporary respite for commodities and the prospect of further weakening of the Australian dollar in the wake of US Fed interest rate hike chatter.