Asian Stock Markets Extend Declines -- Update
December 14 2017 - 10:58PM
Dow Jones News
By Lucy Craymer
Stock markets in Asia continued to weaken on Friday after modest
declines in the U.S. and Europe overnight, but South Korea's stock
benchmark rebounded after Thursday's sharp end-of-session
losses.
The Kospi was recently up 0.4% amid apparent bargain-hunting
after the index in the last 90 minutes of trading Thursday went
from a 1.4% gain to finishing down 0.4%. The fall was attributed to
the quarterly expiration of index options and futures, which
sometimes results in heavy trading as institutional investors
unwind or rollover positions.
There was aggressive selling from local brokers'
proprietary-trading desks and Korea's national postal service, said
Jay Jung, a sales trader for Nomura in Korea. Paul Choi, head of
Korea research for CLSA, added the index's drop wasn't backed by
fundamentals, resulting in today's outperformance.
The only other Asia Pacific stock market higher Friday was New
Zealand, with the NZX-50 on pace for its sixth-straight record
closing high and the 46th of 2017.
The region's declines were led by 0.9% falls in Japan and Hong
Kong. The former was being hurt by slumping wireless stocks and a
stronger yen while further weakness in Chinese financial stocks
weighed on the Hang Seng Index.
Investor sentiment in Asia was hit by concerns about tax-reform
efforts in the U.S. with some concerned by Sen. Marco Rubio's (R.,
Fla.) spokeswoman's comment that he will vote no on the bill if
there isn't a larger child tax credit.
The market is also watching to see whether there is any reaction
to comments overnight from North Korea after the country's state
media said if a U.S. naval blockade was put in place it would be
seen as an act of war.
With the euro at Yen132.30, versus Yen133.15 at the end of local
stock trading Thursday, Japanese wireless-service providers logged
even-bigger declines than seen Thursday, when Rakuten announced
plans to move into the mobile-carrier market. It and incumbents
KDDI and NTT DoCoMo were finished morning trading down about 5%,
with Rakuten hitting 18-month lows.
While insurers and banks weighed in Hong Kong, lenders continued
to pressure Singapore's stock benchmark as well Friday. The Straits
Times Index fell 0.5% after a 1% decline Thursday and setting fresh
2 1/2 -year closing highs earlier this week.
Commodities on Friday were broadly being helped by the U.S.
dollar's pullback the past two days. Oil futures were slightly
higher in Asian trading, building on an overnight rebound.
Kosaku Narioka contributed to this article.
Write to Lucy Craymer at Lucy.Craymer@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 14, 2017 22:43 ET (03:43 GMT)
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