04/01/2024 – 5:40
By Sergio Caldas*
São Paulo, 01/04/2024 – Asian stock markets closed lower this Thursday, following Wall Street, which yesterday reacted negatively to the latest monetary policy minutes from the Federal Reserve (Fed, the US central bank).
In the first trading session of 2024 after a sequence of holidays, the Japanese Nikkei index fell 0.53% in Tokyo today, to 33,288.29 points. Elsewhere in Asia, South Korea's Kospi fell 0.78% in Seoul to 2,587.02 points, the Taiex registered a marginal loss of 0.06% in Taiwan to 17,549.65 points, and the Hang Seng was virtually stable in Hong Kong, with a score of 16,645.98.
In mainland China, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.43%, to 2,954.35 points, and the less comprehensive Shenzhen Composite, fell 0.84%, to 1,797.50 points.
In the minutes of the December meeting, the Fed did not give clear clues yesterday about the next steps of its monetary policy, leading to a reduction in bets that the first interest rate cut will come in March, although this hypothesis remains the majority. In the wake of the document, New York stock exchanges suffered losses of around 0.80% to 1.20%.
In this way, China's latest service activity figures remained in the background. The Chinese services PMI prepared by S&P Global/Caixin rose to 52.9 in December, reaching the highest level in four months and contrasting with the official measure, which remained at 49.3 last month. Readings above 50 indicate expansion of activity and below, contraction.
In Oceania, the Australian stock market was also in the red, like Asia and Wall Street. The S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.39% in Sydney, to 7,494.10 points.
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*With information from Dow Jones Newswires
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