SYDNEY- Asian shares were on the backfoot on Thursday following mixed cues from Wall Street where a sharp sell-off in the largest bitcoin exchange Coinbase hit tech shares while the dollar index struggled near one-month lows.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan paused after two straight days of gains. It was last at 690.53, a long way from a record high of 745.89 touched in February.
Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.2 percent while South Korea’s KOSPI index was up a tad.
Australia’s benchmark index slipped 0.4 percent as miners were dented by weaker prices for iron ore and coal.
Global shares have surged in recent weeks led by successful rollouts of COVID-19 vaccines around the world, US stimulus packages and higher US inflation expectations.
“However, the back up in treasury yields has begun to exert a valuation test on some parts of the global equity markets with value outperforming growth,” Jefferies analysts wrote in a note.
“Equally, there are fewer stocks offering decent yields and higher capital gains.”
JPMorgan Asset Management was trimming its overall Emerging Markets (EM) exposure “mostly driven by a less sanguine outlook on EM Asia,” its global multi-asset strategist PatrikSchowitz wrote in a note.
“China has now recovered enough that policymakers can afford to be more conservative and worry more about containing debt and property market risks. That will be a headwind to China equities, despite the solid economy,” Schowitz added. – Reuters
