SYDNEY - Asian stocks shuddered lower on Friday after shockingly weak export data from China heightened market fears about a global economic slowdown, a day after European policymakers slashed growth forecasts for the bloc.
Analysts cautioned the timing of the Lunar New Year made it difficult to draw a true signal from the data noise, but the scale of the miss was alarming. Japan’s Nikkei dropped 2.0 percent and Australia 0.9 percent. MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan skidded 1.2 percent to a two-week trough.
ECB President Mario Draghi said the economy was in “a period of continued weakness and pervasive uncertainty” as he pushed out a planned rate hike and instead offered banks a new round of cheap loans. “Our initial take is these developments are pressing down on market confidence, seen in lower bond yields and equities.”
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