Asian stocks were seen declining on the last day of the trading week, clearing gains seen from the previous session amid European slowdown concerns.
The Japanese Nikkei 225 index declined 1.23% to 15,286.28 points, while Tokyo’s Topix index fell 1.98% lower to 1,239.55 points at the time of writing. The Japanese yen strengthened against the US dollar on Friday, trading around 107.8 yen against 109.2 yen on Thursday.
The strengthened yen caused exporters’ shares to drop, with Mazda Motor losing 2.8%, Mitsubishi Motors went down 2.5%, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings declined 2.7% and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Holdings fell 3%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index went down 1.58% opening at 23,178.10 points, while the Chinese benchmark Shanghai Composite declined 0.48% to 2,377.98 points. The South Korean Kospi index came in at 1.19% to 1,941.91 points at the time of writing.
In Sydney, the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 index slipped 1.83% lower to 5,199.90 points, weighing on mining and banking stocks.
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Mining giants BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto slid to some 2.5%. Meanwhile the nation’s four main banks saw losses with Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Westpac and ANZ losing 1.4% each, while National Australia Bank went down by 1%.
In Europe, the equities markets saw major losses on Friday as traders raise concerns over the economic growth in the eurozone.
The European Euro Stoxx 50 edged 0.61% lower to trade at 3,028.50, while UK’s FTSE 100 was down 0.50% to 6,399.80. In Germany, the benchmark DAX lost 0.66% to 8,945.50 and the French CAC 40 declined 0.55% to 4,118.80.
The European central Bank President Mario Draghi said the central bank needs to raise inflation from the current low level to boost the economy growth. “We are accountable to the European people for delivering price stability, which today means lifting inflation from its excessively low level,” Draghi said in a speech in Washington. “And we will do exactly that.”
Meanwhile the Eurozone’s strongest economy is on the edge of falling into recession after a report released showed that Germany’s exports and factory output came in weaker than expected. Germany’s economy shrank 0.2% in the second quarter from the last three months, revealed zero growth in the third quarter and is expected to expand by 0.1% in the fourth quarter, according to the outlook presented by four economic institutes.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) revealed in its latest minutes from the September meeting, that the global economy slowdown and stronger US dollar could be potential risks to the world largest economy’s outlook.
However, with the market awaiting an upbeat report from the US Labour department, the Federal Reserve will be focusing on the report figures and other key requirements such as unemployment rate, long-term unemployed etc to decide when to begin raising interest rates.
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