SONY Sony Group Corporation

Asian currencies were hit Friday by a perceived policy easing by the European Central Bank, even as stock-market reaction was mostly positive.

Japan's Nikkei was up 1.1%, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.3% and Taiwan's Taiex was up 0.1%.

The ECB said Thursday it would extend its bond-purchase program by nine months to the end of 2017, but cut its monthly purchases to €60 billion ($64 billion) from €80 billion, as of April.

The ECB action combined tightening and loosening measures, but markets chose to focus on the extension of the asset-purchase program, known as quantitative easing, or QE.

"More QE removes concerns," said Alex Furber, a sales trader at CMC Markets. "It gives investors confidence."

The ECB decision triggered a sharp drop in the euro in late New York trading, bolstering the U.S. dollar broadly. That spilled over into Asian trading Friday, sparking losses in Asian currencies against the dollar, said Khoon Goh, head of Asia research at ANZ. "The broad dollar move is still a very important factor in driving Asian currencies," he added.

China set the yuan 0.35% weaker against the U.S. dollar Friday, fixing the daily dollar-yuan midpoint at 6.8972, compared with 6.8731 on Thursday. Depreciation pressure for the yuan has picked up in recent days, with the dollar-yuan rate in the offshore market rising above 6.91.

The Korean won was down 0.5% against the dollar, partly due to the volatile political situation there: South Korean President Park Geun-hye is widely expected to be impeached by lawmakers today. The Korea Kospi was also down 0.4%.

In Japan, the yen was off 0.4% against the dollar. The yen's weakening helped Japan's export-oriented stock, as a devalued yen makes their goods cheaper in dollars. Sony gained 3.1% and Honda Motor was up 0.7%.

The Shanghai Composite was up 0.2% after solid economic data was released Friday.

China's producer price index rose 3.3% in November from a year earlier, flagging improved demand and pricing power for China's industries. The reading from the National Bureau of Statistics for factory-gate prices came in much stronger than economists' median forecast of a 2.4% increase.

China's consumer price index increased 2.3% in November from a year earlier, beating the median forecast for a 2.2% gain from a survey of economists by The Wall Street Journal.

However, that did not help the Hang Seng Index, which was trading down 0.6%, partly due to a sharp selloff in casino stocks.

The South China Morning Post reported that the daily ATM withdrawal limit in Macau for China UnionPay bank card holders will be cut by half to 5,000 patacas (US$626). The capital outflow measure cuts the sums that the Chinese can gamble in the special administrative region.

Galaxy Entertainment tumbled 8.5%, Sands China dropped 8.6% and MGM China fell 7.4% in early trade Friday.

The China market is still largely being weighed down with capital outflow and the yuan depreciation, said Andrew Sullivan, managing director of sales trading at Haitong International Securities.

Saumya Vaishampayan, Liyan Qi, Saumya Vaishampayan and Kenan Machado contributed to this article.

Write to Willa Plank at willa.plank@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 08, 2016 23:15 ET (04:15 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.