Asian stocks declined, with a regional gauge heading for a one-week low, as Chinese shares tumbled the most since the depths of this year’s rout as some of the largest brokerages disclosed regulatory probes and the nation’s industrial profits fell.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index slipped 0.9 percent to 133.34 at 4:41pm Hong Kong time, heading for the lowest close since Nov. 18 and a 0.9 percent decline this week. The Shanghai Composite Index sank 5.5 percent, the most since August, as China’s biggest brokerages, Citic Securities Co (中信證券) and Haitong Securities Co (海通證券) plunged amid investigations for alleged rule violations. The crackdown in the finance industry comes as the government widens an anti-corruption campaign and seeks to assign blame for a US$5 trillion stock-market plunge.
“The sharp decline will raise questions whether the authorities’ confidence that we are seeing stability in the Chinese markets may be a tad premature,” Singapore-based IG Asia Pte strategist Bernard Aw said. “The rally since the August collapse was not fundamentally supported. The removal of restrictions for large brokers to sell and the IPO resumptions may not have been announced at an opportune time.”
Citic Securities said it received a notice from the China Securities Regulatory Commission on Thursday saying it will be investigated because it allegedly violated regulations on the supervision and administration of securities firms, while Haitong Securities is also being probed, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
China’s economy is still showing a muted response to waves of monetary and fiscal easing as of the half-way mark for the last quarter of the year, some of the earliest indicators for this month suggest.
Profits at the country’s industrial companies declined 4.6 percent last month from a year ago, data released by the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics today showed.
“With regards to China, our sense is that there are still significant risks to the global economy, but on the other side, that they’ve got the policy ammunition to dampen that risk,” Auckland-based First NZ Capital Group Ltd director of economics and strategy Chris Green said.
Japan’s TOPIX dropped 0.5 percent. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average slid 0.3 percent, falling from a three-month high. The nation’s consumer prices excluding fresh food fell 0.1 percent last month from a year earlier, in line with economists’ estimates, according to a report released before the stock market opened Friday.
A measure of inflation that also excludes energy rose 0.7 percent. The jobless rate fell to 3.1 percent, the lowest since 1995.
The TAIEX fell 1.02 percent to 8,398.4. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index sank 1.9 percent. South Korea’s KOSPI lost 0.1 percent. Singapore’s Straits Times Index declined 0.7 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 Index slipped 0.2 percent, while New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 Index added 0.2 percent.
Next week sees policy decisions from the Reserve Bank of Australia and European Central Bank, before theUS reports payrolls figures for this month. The International Monetary Fund’s board meets on whether to grant the yuan reserve-currency status, and OPEC members will gather in Vienna.
“Traders still need to take into consideration that the investment landscape could change significantly next week,” IG Ltd chief markets strategist Chris Weston said in an emailed note. “Moves in the US dollar hold the key for all risk assets.”
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last