TOKYO – Asian equities were lower on Wednesday as global markets cautiously awaited the US Federal Reserve’s latest comment on the economic outlook.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 NIK,
gave up early profits and decreased 0.2% while Kospi 180721 in South Korea,
withdrew 1%. Australia’s S & P / ASX 200 XJO,
immersed 0.7%. Hang Seng HSI in Hong Kong,
decreased by 0.2%, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP,
it decreased by 0.4%. Standard Index in Singapore STI,
Taiwan Y9999,
and Indonesia JAKIDX,
slipped too.
Investors are awaiting the Federal Reserve’s latest economic and interest rate forecasts, which are expected later in the day. Economists expect Fed Chairman Jerome Powell to try to convince bubbly financial markets that the central bank can continue to offer support without inciting higher inflation.
These concerns have recently boosted bond yields, causing declining demand for equities.
The Fed meeting “holds the potential to allay or increase recent concerns about rising bond yields,” said Jingyi Pan, senior market strategist at IG in Singapore.
Wall Street limited a bad day of trading with indices that mostly closed lower. Losses by banks, industrial equities and consumer spending companies, including cruise line operators, outweighed the gains in shares of Big Tech and communications services.
The S&P 500 SPX,
it dropped 0.2% to 3,962.71. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
lost 0.4% to 32,825.95. The Nasdaq COMP,
took the trend, benefiting from the rise in technology stocks and by 0.1%, to 13,471.57.
Investors weighed in on new economic data on Tuesday showing that Americans spent last month on spending, partly due to bad weather in large parts of the country that kept traders away from stores, and partly due to the stimulus payments in December and January .
“We are still returning to a more normal environment,” said Jason Pride, chief investment officer of private wealth at Glenmede. “Given the clumsiness of the government’s stimulus payments, we’re going to see numbers jump.”
In energy trading, the US standard CLJ21,
fell 9 cents to $ 64.71 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 59 cents to $ 64.80 on Tuesday. Brent ru-BRNK21,
the international standard, lost 15 cents to $ 68.24 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar USDJPY,
rose to 109.12 Japanese yen from 108.99 yen.