ASIA MARKETS: Asian Shares Mixed In Wake Of U.S. Stock Market's Weakness
July 20 2018 - 12:11AM
Dow Jones News
By Sue Chang, MarketWatch
Chinese authorities guide yuan down sharply against the U.S.
dollar
Asian stocks were mixed Friday in the wake of the weakness in
the U.S. markets following comments from President Donald Trump
that he wants the Federal Reserve to back off of its tight monetary
policy regime.
Trump told CNBC
(https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/19/trump-lays-into-the-fed-says-hes-not-thrilled-about-interest-rate-.html)
that he is not "thrilled" that the Fed is hiking interest rates
because he feels that it puts the U.S. at a disadvantage with
central banks Europe and Japan maintaining loose monetary
policy.
"Because we go up and every time you go up they want to raise
rates again. I don't really - I am not happy about it. But at the
same time I'm letting them do what they feel is best," he said.
The greenback remained resilient in the wake of Trump's
criticism with the ICE dollar index steady at 95.15 while the U.S.
10-year Treasury yield also was mostly unchanged at 2.843%.
China's Shanghai Composite is moving in and out of positive
territory in its effort to snap its losing streak.
Dow Jones Newswires reported that Chinese authorities are
expected to step up support for semiconductor and other high-tech
manufacturing sectors rather than easing property regulations and
increasing infrastructure projects to bolster the economy.
Meanwhile, the People's Bank of China fixed the dollar's
reference rate at a near two-year low of 6.7671 yuan versus
CNY6.7066 on Thursday.
Nikkei fell for a second day, shedding 0.7%. Japan's core
consumer prices, which exclude fresh food, rose 0.8% on-year in
June versus May's 0.7%. However, excluding energy, the inflation
index actually slowed to 0.2% versus 0.3% in the previous month,
according to Dow Jones Newswires.
Korea's Kospi was flat while Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped
0.5%.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.4% and Taiwan's Taiex advanced 0.8%.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 19, 2018 23:56 ET (03:56 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2018 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.