TOKYO (AP) — Asian stocks were mixed Wednesday after U.S. stocks remained relatively flat on Wall Street.
US futures and oil prices fell, while the yen fell further against the US dollar.
The Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo lost 1.5% to 38,244.76 points. Nintendo’s stock price fell by 5.2% after the company’s expectations disappointed investors Announce News of the next product for the popular Switch will be announced by March 2025.
Market participants are watching the authorities’ reaction to the continued weakness of the yen against the US dollar.
The dollar rose to 155.14 Japanese yen from 154.50 yen. Japanese officials expressed concern after the yen’s value fell to 160.25 against the dollar in recent days, prompting the Ministry of Finance to intervene.
“Exchange rate movements may have a significant impact on the economy and prices, so there is a chance that we may need to respond with monetary policy,” Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda told lawmakers on Wednesday.
A weak yen helps the profits of Japanese companies that earn a large amount of their revenues abroad, but fluctuations in interest rates can turn planning upside down, and the weak yen has eroded the purchasing power of both households and companies, leading to higher costs of food and energy imports. Among other things.
Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.4% to 18,410.20, and the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.4% to 3,134.75.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was little changed at 7,795.70, while South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.1% to 2,736.20.
Taiwan’s Taiex rose 0.1%.
On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 5,187.70. It was a quiet day after three consecutive jumps of at least 0.9% for the index.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.1% to 38,884.26 points, and the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.1% to 16,332.56 points.
Shares of Kenvue, a company whose brands include Band-Aids and Tylenol, rose 6.4% after beating analysts’ expectations for both earnings and revenue in the latest quarter.
Walt Disney Company It fell 9.5% despite reporting stronger fourth-quarter results than analysts expected. Its revenue fell slightly below expectations, and it expects its entertainment streaming business to decline in the current quarter.
They are among the companies reporting their results for the first three months of the year. Most companies beat their earnings expectations, but didn’t get as big a boost to their stock prices afterward as they normally would, according to FactSet. Not only that, but companies that missed profit expectations saw their stock prices fall further the next day than they have historically.
This may indicate that investors are listening to critics who have widely described the US stock market as too expensive after it reached record levels this year. For stock prices to rise further, either profits must grow more or interest rates must fall.
Wall Street still considers the latter option a possibility this year after some events last week that traders found encouraging.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the central bank is still closer to cutting its key interest rate than raising it, despite a series of measures. Stubbornly high readings on inflation this year. a Jobs report colder than expected Meanwhile, he proposed on Friday American economy It can strike the balance of remaining strong enough to avoid a bad recession without being so strong that it keeps inflation too high.
In other trading, the price of US crude oil fell 33 cents to $78.05 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 10 cents on Tuesday to $78.38 a barrel.
Brent crude, the international standard, fell 38 cents to $82.78 a barrel.
The euro fell to $1.0742 from $1.0755.
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AP Business Writer Stan Choi contributed.
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