Demand for safe-haven assets boosted the U.S. dollar causing most Asian currencies to falter
Stock markets in Indonesia, Philippines and South Korea declined more than 1% on Tuesday as rises in coronavirus cases locally and globally dampened hopes of a swift economic recovery.
Indonesian 10-year benchmark yields are up about 2.90 basis points at 6.906%
In the Philippines, top index losers are Bloomberry Resorts Corp down 2.37% and Metro Pacific Investments Corp down 2.02%
Top losers on the Jakarta stock index include Global Teleshop Tbk PT down 6.72% and Yanaprima Hastapersada Tbk PT down 6.63%
South Korean stocks, dropped 1.7% to lead falls across Asia’s emerging markets, while Jakarta’s main index slid as much as 1.6% to its lowest level in almost two weeks.
The number of infections in the Philippines rose another 3,500 to top 290,000 on Monday, while Indonesia reported a record jump in cases despite moves to lock down parts of its capital.
Sentiment on stock markets globally worsened on Monday as the imposition of curbs in a number of European countries, along with a possible delay in fresh U.S. fiscal stimulus, weakened the prospects for recovery, said Margaret Yang, a strategist at retail trading platform IG.
Banking stocks weighed on Singapore’s FTSE Straits Times Index (STI) after DBS Group Holdings was among the banks named in reports on Sunday that a number of major global lenders had moved more than $2 trillion in suspect funds over the past two decades.
The city-state’s top three lenders shed between 0.6% to 1.4% each.
Demand for safe-haven assets boosted the U.S. dollar, causing most Asian currencies to falter, with the Thai baht, Indonesian rupiah and the Malaysian ringgit dropping by 0.3% to 0.4%.
The Bank of Thailand (BoT) is expected to keep interest rates at a record low 0.5% on Wednesday. Goldman Sachs analysts, writing in a note over the weekend, said they were looking to the BoT’s meeting for any insight into the central bank’s stance on unconventional monetary policy tools such as quantitative easing, corporate bond purchases and FX policy.
The Taiwan dollar was among outliers as it rallied 0.6%.
The island’s monthly export orders, a bellwether of global technology demand, grew at the fastest pace in more than two-and-a-half years as the global shift to homeworking during the pandemic strengthened tech businesses.
Source: Reuters
