Asian stocks slide amid concerns over hawkish central bank hikes

22 Feb 2023 , 09:26 AM

On Wednesday, Asian stocks mirrored Wall Street’s decline due to unexpected robustness in worldwide service surveys, causing concerns that central banks may need to raise interest rates even more and for an extended period of time.

MSCI’s extensive gauge of Asia-Pacific equities, excluding Japan, dropped by 0.97% in response to Wall Street’s worst performance of the year on Tuesday. This was compounded by an unexpectedly positive report of the composite purchasing managers’ index (PMI) by S&P Global, indicating that the U.S. economy was not slowing down as much as anticipated.

To achieve its targeted range of inflation in the medium term, the central bank announced its plans to continue with further tightening measures.

After a PMI report on Tuesday revealed a contraction in the factory sector, Japan’s Nikkei stock index declined by 1.25% on Wednesday.

China’s main stock index declined by 0.68%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped by 0.27%.

Globally, U.S. crude oil dropped by 0.5% to $75.98 per barrel, and Brent crude fell by 0.45% to $82.68.

In Wednesday early morning session, Indian benchmark index BSE Sensex was trading 287 points lower at 60,387. NSE Nifty was trading 0.49% lower at 17,739 points.

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