Most Asian stocks went down on Tuesday as stronger-than-expected economic data added to worries about a “hawkish” Federal Reserve. However, Chinese stocks lost less than other Asian stocks because more cities lifted anti-COVID measures.
The biggest losses were in technology-related bourses. South Korea’s KOSPI, Taiwan’s weighted index, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index all fell between 0.8% and 1.2%.
After strong factory orders and service sector data came out overnight, investors worried that U.S. inflation might stay higher than expected in the coming months. This made the dollar and U.S. Treasury yields go up. Indexes on Wall Street also fell after the readings.
Related: Asia’s stock markets fall because Fed worries are bigger than China’s reopening report.
Asian stocks went up in November because the Federal Reserve said interest rates would rise more slowly than expected. However, the Fed also said that persistent inflation could cause rates to peak much higher than expected.
Together, the data from Monday and Friday’s report on payrolls, which was better than expected, made people worry about inflation that won’t go away. This week, everyone is looking forward to the U.S. producer inflation data, which is due on Friday and is expected to show more about how prices are rising in the country.
When the Fed meets next week, rates are also likely to go up by 50 basis points.
On Tuesday, the blue-chip Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 index went up 0.6%, and the Shanghai Composite index went up 0.1%. This was against the general trend.
Beijing announced on Tuesday that more testing requirements would be eased in the Chinese capital. This came after COVID restrictions were eased in several major cities over the weekend.
Media reports also said that the Chinese government is getting ready to remove more restrictions from its strict “zero-COVID” policy. This comes after a wave of protests against the law that have never happened before. But because China is dealing with its worst COVID outbreak ever, with new cases every day, the government may be hesitant to say that it will change its policy completely.
This idea didn’t stop investors from buying heavily discounted Chinese stocks in droves, which led to a great market rally over the past few weeks.
The value of Australian stocks went down by 0.5% after the Reserve Bank raised interest rates by 25 basis points and said there would be more rate hikes to stop inflation from going up.
On Tuesday, Philippine stocks did the best in Asia. They went up 2.6%, ending a three-day losing streak.
But the outlook for the country was clouded by inflation that was higher than expected, which is likely to lead the central bank to raise interest rates again.
Related: Asia’s stocks feel better when Chinese homes go up in value.
The Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex 30 indexes both went down by 0.5%, which means that Indian stocks fell further from their record highs.