SYDNEY, Aug 23 — Asian shares were down for a sixth straight session today after a renewed spike in European energy prices stoked fears of recession and pushed bond yields higher, while tipping the euro to 20-year lows.
European and British manufacturing surveys due later today were expected to highlight the damage being done to activity, with Germany seen deeper in contractionary territory. Sterling was down at US$1.1766, after diving as deep as US$1.1743 and levels last seen in March 2020 at the start of the pandemic. That saw the dollar index up to 108.870 and within a whisker of its July peak.
“But growth in the services sector seems unlikely to accelerate by much so long as China’s zero-Covid policies remain in place; the pandemic-linked export boom is coming to an end; and power shortages due to droughts in parts of the country look set to hobble industry in the near term.” Chinese blue chips were off 0.2 per cent having received only a fleeting lift from the latest policy easing.MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dipped 0.
Ten-year yields US10YT=RR were last trading at 3.029 per cent, up 50 basis points from the lows of early August.