pointer record Japanese Nikkei Its worst week in nearly three months on Friday, while ending the day flat, was pressured by fears of aggressive interest rate hikes globally, while the weak yen provided little support.
The Nikkei closed down 0.04% to 27,650.84 points, and recorded a weekly decline of 3.4%, its worst loss since mid-June.
The broader Topix index fell 0.27% to 1930.17, following touching a 6-week low of 1,926.05 earlier in the session. The index lost 2.5% this week.
Market expectations of a US interest rate hike, hurting appetite for stocks, have been growing since Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech last week, which reiterated his focus on curbing inflation above all.
“Many in the stock markets, including Japan, believe that the upside is very limited, due to this (hard-line) stance of the Federal Reserve,” said Masayuki Kishikawa, chief macro strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management.
Technology companies have been particularly hard hit by the hawkish stance on interest rate hikes, making the sector the biggest drag in the broader market on Friday.
Shares of Nixon Video Games, which touched a 6-month low following reporting quarterly earnings on Thursday, fell 3.06%, the biggest pressure on the Nikkei index.
Trend Micro’s stock fell 1.68% and lost more than 7% during the week, as the cyber security company’s stock fell from its two-decade high last month.
The focus now turns to US employment data due later on Friday, which if strong might boost expectations of a 75 basis point interest rate hike by the central bank later in September, and also to the currency market, where the yen hit a 24-year low. .
“Of course, the weak yen helped exporting companies’ profits,” said Sumitomo’s Kichikawa.