Japan received some mixed economic data on Friday, but stocks slid anyway, mostly due to a stronger yen.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slumped 213.49 points, or 1.4%, to end the week at 15,095, marking its biggest drop since mid-May. The closing level was the lowest in more than a week. For the week, the index posted a 1.7% loss, snapping a five-week winning streak.
The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong added 23.69 points, or 0.1%, to 23,221.52
Slamming equities was a stronger yen, which traded at ¥101.42 per U.S. dollar from ¥101.66 per U.S. dollar on Thursday.
On the same day, Japan’s official data showed the country’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% in May, the lowest level since 1997, and the May core consumer-price index rose 3.4% from a year earlier, in line with market forecasts.
However, household spending fell a price-adjusted 8% in May compared with a year earlier, indicating the shadow of the consumption-tax hike still looms. The fall was much worse than a 2% decrease forecast by economists in a Wall Street Journal poll.
In Japan, tech exporters were among top underperformers, with semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Electronics Corp. down 3.3%, IT service provider Fujitsu off 2%, and industrial robot maker Fanuc Corp. lower by 1.9%.
Other market movers included Standard Chartered PLC, which tumbled 4.5% in Hong Kong trading, after the bank issued a profit warning.
CHINA
The Shanghai CSI 300 squeezed up 1.18 points, or 0.1%, to 2,150.26
Chinese data are out on overall earnings at the nation’s largest industrial corporations, with growth still strong but slowing.
For May, profit was up 8.9% from a year earlier, a robust pace but still 0.7 of a point below what it was in April.
More importantly, the gains are lagging what major Chinese enterprises saw last year.
Much of the profit data are reported on a cumulative basis, and on those terms, the January-May profit growth was 9.8%, marking the only time the number has fallen below 10% in the past 12 months, with the exception of this year’s January-February Lunar New Year period — always a slow time — when the expansion rate cooled to 9.4%.
In other markets;
In Korea, the Kospi index dropped 6.54 points, or 0.3%, to 1,988.51
Singapore’s Straits Times Index slid 7.52 points, or 0.2%, to 3,271.05
In Taiwan, the Taiex index removed 14.11 points, or 0.2%, to 9,306.83
In New Zealand, the NZX 50 gained 14.09 points, or 0.3%, to 5,144.25
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 deducted 19.26 points, or 0.4%, to 5,445.06
