TOKYO : Asia-Pacific stocks fell on Friday, slumping toward a second weekly loss as investors fretted about the potential for further Federal Reserve tightening and the effect on the U.S. economy.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares sank 0.54 per cent and was on course for a 1 per cent weekly decline, after losing 1.16 per cent in the previous week.China's January factory gate prices fell more than economists expected, suggesting that flashes of domestic demand that had stoked consumer prices after the zero-COVID policy ended are not yet strong enough to rekindle upstream sectors.Japan's Nikkei bucked the trend with a 0.
"Powell maintained a relatively dovish tone, and markets took that as a green light to rally, but pretty much 24 hours later we got a stream of extremely hawkish Fed speak," said Tony Sycamore, a strategist at IG. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the greenback against six peers including the euro and yen, ticked up slightly to 103.28, sticking to the middle of its range this week. It touched 103.96 on Tuesday for the first time since Jan. 6 as well.