Beijing has ordered companies to close factories in 19 industries where
overproduction has led to price-cutting wars, affirming its determination to
push ahead with a painful makeover of the economy. That move followed weak
manufacturing data on Wednesday.
Communist leaders are trying to reduce reliance on investment and trade. But
a slowdown that pushed China's economic growth to a two-decade low of 7.5
percent last quarter had earlier prompted suggestions they might have to reverse
course and stimulate the economy with more investment to reduce the threat of
job losses and unrest.
China's Shanghai Composite dropped 0.5 percent to 2,010.85.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell even further, closing 3 percent lower at
14,129.98, due to a big rise in the yen, which risks making the country's
exports less competitive on international markets.
Japan on Friday said consumer prices rose in June for the first time in more
than a year, an early sign Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's stimulus policies are
working. While that is a promising sign in the long-term, the signs of inflation
suggest interest rates could eventually also increase — higher rates tend to
strengthen a national currency. The dollar was down 0.6 percent against the yen,
at 98.67 yen.
In Europe, Britain's FTSE 100 index was down 0.3 percent to 6,571.71 while
Germany's DAX was 0.5 percent lower at 8,258.18. France's CAC-40 bucked the
trend, rising 0.4 percent to 3,973.45, thanks to a 5.7 percent rise in the
shares of LVMH, the luxury goods maker, after it reported higher earnings.
Wall Street was expected to drop slightly on the open, with S&P 500
futures down 0.3 percent and Dow futures 0.2 percent lower.
Overall, trading has been quiet in recent days as a lot of people wait for
next week's meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee in the U.S. for
guidance on the tapering of U.S. government bond purchases, he said.
Since late last year, the U.S. Federal Reserve has been buying $85 billion in
Treasury and mortgage bonds a month — a move that has kept long-term rates near
record lows and supported economic recovery.
Elsewhere in the region, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.1 percent to
5,042. Stocks in South Korea and New Zealand finished slightly higher while
benchmarks in the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia and Taiwan fell. Hong Kong's
Hang Seng was up 0.3 percent to 21,968.95
In energy trading, benchmark crude was down 75 cents at $104.74 a barrel in
electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose 10 cents to
close at $105.49 on Thursday.
The euro was little changed at $1.3275 from $1.3277 late Thursday.
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Teresa Cerojano in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.
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