Dow Jones/Singapore
Foreign currency dealers looking at monitors at the headquarters of Korea Exchange Bank in Seoul. South Korean shares were under notable selling pressure yesterday, with Hyundai Motor Co shares down 2.7% and Samsung Electronics off 1.1%. The Kospi index declined 0.8% to 2,083.35
Asian share markets traded mostly lower yesterday as comments from Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke did little to assuage worries over US economic growth for investors also fretting about the possibility of more tightening moves from China.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index ended lower 0.9% at 22,661.63 even as China’s Shanghai Composite Index eked out some late gains, on bargain-hunting, to close 0.2% higher at 2,750.29. Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average also managed to rise 0.1% to end the session at 9,449.46. But South Korea’s Kospi index declined 0.8% to 2,083.35. The Australian S&P/ASX 200 index closed down 0.7% at 4,536.80.
“US growth concerns continue to dampen sentiment,” said Asian strategists at Credit Agricole, pinning the latest round of worries to a speech Tuesday by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke “in which he highlighted the uneven economic recovery but gave no indication of further stimulus.”
Bernanke said that the US economy should pick up in the second half of the year. But he also admitted that the economic recovery was proving to be “uneven” and “frustratingly slow.”
Bernanke’s comments followed some weak US data, notably last Friday’s jobs report.
“Concerns about the US growth outlook and renewed speculation about a possible China rate hike (we expect one by the end of the month) contributed to broad-based equity weakness” in Asia on Wednesday, said strategists at RBC Capital Markets.
In Hong Kong, banking giant HSBC Holdings declined 1.0%, hurt by news it agreed to pay $62.5mn to investors in a fund it serviced that lost money from the Bernard Madoff incident. In the energy sector, shares of oil firm CNOOC Ltd fell 0.1% as light, sweet crude futures traded down 72 cents at $98.37 a barrel.
Australian-listed energy companies were also weak along with oil prices, with Woodside Petroleum Ltd shares down 2.6%.
South Korean shares were under notable selling pressure, with Hyundai Motor Co shares down 2.7% and Samsung Electronics off 1.1%.
The Bank of Korea said that real gross domestic product in the first quarter of 2011 grew a revised, seasonally-adjusted 1.3%, compared to the previous quarter, slightly lower than the 1.4% rate estimated by the central bank in late April.
Japanese car makers were mixed, with Honda Motor Co, ending the day down 1.3% but Toyota Motor Co ending the session up 0.2%.
Sony shares managed to gain as well, rising 0.3% and paring week-to-date losses to 4.3%. The firm’s PlayStation Network online videogame service has been the subject of hacker attacks recently, but it said online activity has returned to near-normal levels.
However, Tokyo Electric Power Co dropped 7.4%. Other utilities were also pressured, with Tohoku Electric Power down 3.7%, and Chubu Electric Power Co 2.1% lower.