SYDNEY- Asian shares fell for a second straight session on Wednesday to one-month lows as investors speculated surging commodity prices and growing inflationary pressure in the United States could lead to earlier rate hikes and higher bond yields globally.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan faltered 0.5 percent, after tumbling 1.6 percent on Tuesday for its biggest daily percentage drop since March 24.
“There isn’t a clear catalyst behind this purge,” said MariosHadjikyriacos, investment analyst for XM.
“It seems to be a combination of inflation fears making a comeback and some market participants moving higher along the value spectrum, cutting their exposure to anything with a stretched valuation.”
At 682 points, the regional index is not too far from a record high of 745.89 touched in February and is still up 3 percent this year so far, on top of a 19 percent jump in 2020 and a near 16 percent rise in 2019.
Shares in China opened in the red, with the blue-chip index off 0.2 percent.
Australian stocks slipped 0.6 percent while South Korea’s KOSPI index skidded 0.7 percent.
Japan’s Nikkei reversed early gains to be down 0.4 percent.
Analysts, however, doubted the sell-off would extend much further in a world of easy accommodative policy and fiscal largesse.
Overnight on Wall Street, technology stocks were among the biggest losers though the tech-focused Nasdaq reversed the bulk of its early 2 percentdecline over the course of the day. The Dow dropped 1.4 percent and the S&P 500 fell 0.9 percent. – Reuters
