A hawkish tone from central banks and a warning from JPMorgan Chase and Co. CEO Jamie Dimon led to Asian stock markets’ losses on Thursday, according to the Wall Street Journal.
By 10:41 PM ET (2:41 AM GMT), the Nikkei 225 in Japan had fallen by 0.18 percent. On the other hand, the KOSPI in South Korea had dropped by 0.86 percent.
The S&P/ASX 200 index dropped 0.98 percent in Australia. In April, exports rose 1% ,while imports contracted 1% month-on-month. And, the trade balance was AUD10.495 billion ($7.54 billion), according to Thursday’s figures. Data on retail sales in Australia was also released publicly.
The Hang Seng Index in Hong Kong fell 1.38 percent.
The Shanghai Composite dropped 0.03 percent, while the Shenzhen Component rose 0.03 percent in China’s latest trading session.
The latest economic data from the United States is likewise being analyzed by investors. In May 2022, the manufacturing purchasing managers’ index (PMI) was 57, the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing employment index was 49.6, the ISM manufacturing PMI was 56.1, and the JOLTs jobs opening index was 11.4 million.
After rising overnight, benchmark 10-year US Treasury rates were around 2.90%. Crude oil went down because of a report that Saudi Arabia will pump more oil if Russian output goes down. Later in the day, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies (OPEC+) will meet.
However, JP Morgan strategist Marko Kolanovic expects Asia stocks to rebound by the end of 2022, despite Dimon’s dire warnings. It also emphasizes the debate as
Investors are still unsure if the Fed’s tighter monetary policies would cause a recession, with a group of Fed policymakers opposing calls to continue increasing to fight price pressures.
Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, and James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, both supported a plan to raise interest rates by 50 basis points in June 2022 at different events. Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin noted that it made “absolutely perfect sense” to raise interest rates.
A discussion of the forecast for the economy by Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester will take place later in the day. The next day, the United States will release its jobs report, which will include data on non-farm payrolls.
“We do see the chance of a recession rising in the second half of this year, and it could last until 2023 as the Fed continues to fight inflation,” Tracie McMillion, head of global asset allocation strategy at Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC), told Bloomberg.
McMillion also said that the markets haven’t fully priced in the effects of the Fed’s plan to reduce its balance sheet. “This month, quantitative tightening will start to roll off the Fed’s balance sheet, which has never happened before. We think that it is not fully priced into the market,” she stated.
The Bank of Canada lifted overnight rates by half a percentage point to 1.5 percent as expected. It also cautioned that it may move “more firmly” to limit inflation if necessary. On the same day, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will publish its monthly index of food prices.
Source: Investing
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