Asian Markets Mostly Down This Week

Asia’s markets were mostly down in trade on Friday following a rocky week featuring particularly volatile swings in Tokyo.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index spent most of the day in negative territory to close down 0.19% at 18,264.22.

After surging almost 8% on Wednesday, the Tokyo index closed down 2.5% on Thursday – among Asia’s big losers.

Investor concern over whether or not the US Federal Reserve will raise interest rates next week has set in.

Investor sentiment has also been affected by the slowing Chinese economy, which is the world’s second-biggest after the United States.

Japan’s investors seem to shrug off news that Japan Post is seeking to raise as much as 1.39tn yen ($11.5bn, £7.4bn) in a stock market listing – including its banking and insurance arms – that would be one of the world’s biggest this year.

The plan for the state-owned giant would be one of Japan’s largest public share sales in more than 30 years.

via BBC

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza