SINGAPORE. Asia-Pacific stocks fell in Friday trading, following losses on Wall Street, as the Russian-Ukrainian war continues to keep investors on their toes.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index led regionally, shedding 3.01% as shares of Chinese technology companies listed in the city suffered big losses: Tencent fell 4%, Alibaba fell 5.62% and Meituan fell 8. 32%.
The Shanghai composite in mainland China fell about 2%, while the Shenzhen component lost 2.074%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell more than 2%, losing some of its nearly 4% gain on Thursday. The Topix index fell 1.93%.
In South Korea, Kospi fell 1.09%. The Australian S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.74%.
The broadest Asia-Pacific MSCI stock index outside of Japan was down 1.58%.
Overnight in the US, the S&P 500 index fell 0.43% to 4,259.52 points, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 112.18 points to 33,174.07 points. The Nasdaq Composite lost 0.95% to 13,129.96 points.
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned Thursday that America faces another year of “very uncomfortably high” inflation amid the Russia-Ukraine war. Negotiations between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine in Turkey on Thursday ended in failure.
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Yellen’s remarks come against the background of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine, which has led to a sharp rise in commodity prices. Data released Thursday also showed a sharp rise in US consumer inflation in February, with the CPI up 7.9% year-over-year in that month, the highest level since January 1982.
Oil prices were mixed in Asian morning trading, with Brent oil futures falling 0.2% to $109.11 a barrel. US oil futures rose 0.16% to $106.19 a barrel.
Currencies
The US Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of peers, was at 98.523 after rebounding from 97.8 recently.
The Japanese yen traded at 116.22 per dollar, still below the sub-115.5 levels seen against the dollar earlier this week. The Australian dollar traded at $0.7338 after rising yesterday from below $0.732.