Market Update
Asian markets fell Friday, tracking a sharply negative closing on Wall Street overnight.
The Nikkei fell 3% to a three-week low. The Shanghai Composite gave up half a percent while the Hang Seng was down 1%. The Sensex was off 0.4% while the All Ordinaries retreated 1.3%.
Following China's weak data out yesterday, a number of economists reset their growth targets for the world's second biggest economy with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch now projecting a 7.3% growth this quarter from an earlier estimate of 8%.
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang said at the close of the Chinese legislature's annual meeting that corporate bond defaults are likely to increase and have to be tolerated. Last week, Keqiang said the country's economy may drop to a growth rate less than 7.5%.
The Japanese yen was little changed after the minutes released from the Bank of Japan meeting were as expected. The minutes showed several BoJ members as saying the decision last month to expand pro-growth lending tools should not be considered as additional monetary easing.
Stocks on the Move
Exporters were expectedly lower as the dollar bought 101.69 yen. Renesas Electronics Corp. fell 6% while index heavyweight Sony shed 3.5%. Panasonic, Olympus, Toshiba and Sharp all fell in a range between 3.5% to 4%. Konami gave up 4.6%.
Obayashi Corp. was down 2.5% despite a broker upgrade.
In Hong Kong, real estate major New World Development plunged about 15% after it revealed plans to privatize its China unit, New World China Land, for HKD6.8 per share, a premium of 32% over the previous day's closing price. Shares of New World China Land skyrocketed almost 30%.
Insurance major Ping An Insurance fell 1.6% after the company reported 2013 net profit at 28.15 billion yuan, missing projections.
The Sensex tracked its regional peers lower with Axis Bank leading losses, down 2.8%. Elsewhere on the market, MCX fell about 4% as India's Central Bureau of Investigation began preliminary enquiries into certain irregularities.
Later in the day, the government is to release the wholesale price index, or WPI-based inflation data.
Aussie markets got their first chance to react to the disappointing China data released after the Sydney market close yesterday. Resources fell with index leader BHP Billiton down 1.7% and Fortescue Metals 3.1% lower. OZ Minerals was down 5.5% while Atlas Iron weakened 6.2%. Rio Tinto was down 2.4%.