Asian stock markets took a significant hit on Friday, owing primarily to the ongoing Middle Eastern tensions and the United States Federal Reserve's expected hold on rate cuts until July. This turn of events follows otherwise mixed cues that were received from Wall Street. Asian markets closed mostly in the green on Thursday; however, shares took a nosedive by Friday.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President, Neel Kashkari, advocated for patience in reducing the interest rates, indicating that the first move might not materialize until 2025. Subsequently, the Australian stock market took a downturn for the six consecutive sessions, with the indices falling significantly amidst weaker performances across sectors, notably the mining and energy stocks.
In other developments, tech stocks such as WiseTech Global and AfterPay saw a decline, but Zip and Appen saw increases of over one and two percent, respectively. According to the currency market, the Australian dollar stood at $0.638 on Friday.
The Japanese stock market also saw a downward spiral with the Nikkei 225 on a 3.3 percent decline. Prominent losers included heavyweight SoftBank Group and Uniqlo, each seeing losses of nearly 4 percent and 2 percent respectively.
In contrast, oil and gas exploration company, Inpex, showed progress, gaining almost 3 percent. Meanwhile, the U.S. dollar was trading in the lower 154 yen-range on Friday.
Asian markets elsewhere also showed declines; Taiwan fell by 4.1 percent, and South Korea slipped 2.9 percent, whereas New Zealand, China, and Singapore reported lower figures between 0.2 and 0.9 percent each. Interestingly, Malaysia bucked the trend, improving by 0.2 percent.
On Wall Street, stocks were under pressure, with the Nasdaq and S&P 500 ending the day in negative territory, reflecting weakness in the tech sector. However, the narrower Dow remained in the green, inching up 22.07 points or 0.1 percent.
Major European markets showed positive growth today. The French CAC 40 Index saw a rise of 0.5 percent, while both the UK's FTSE 100 Index and the German DAX Index experienced a growth of 0.4 percent.
As for the energy sector, crude oil prices remained relatively stable on Thursday. This was mainly due to concerns about future global oil demand, coupled with recent data that indicates a surge in crude oil inventory last week. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for May stood at $82.73 per barrel, marking a slight increase of $0.04 from its prior close.
