Asian Stock Market Showed Decline As Nvidia Drags Down Wall Street

In today’s trading, Asian shares mostly declined following a downturn on Wall Street, where a drop in Nvidia stock dragged markets down. 

In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 index remained relatively stable, edging down less than 0.1% to 38,596.47. This came after the government reported that the inflation rate had increased for the first time in three months, reaching 2.5% in May, up from 2.2% in April. 

Yeap Jun Rong, a market analyst at IG, noted that with one or a month of data before the next Bank of Japan meeting, this information will be closely scrutinized to determine if markets are prematurely anticipating a potential rate hike in September this year. 

Meanwhile, the Japanese Yen weakened to around 159 per dollar, nearing the 160 level that triggered market intervention by authorities in late April. 

Japan’s top currency diplomat, Masato Kanda, stated that the government is prepared to take further action against speculative currency movements. In addition, the US Treasure has added Japan to its list of countries monitored for potential currency manipulation. 

Elsewhere in Asia, Hong Kong’s Hang Send index fell by 1.6% to 18,039.40, while the Shanghai Composite declined by 0.2% to 2,998.14. All sectors traded sharply lower, impacted by a warning from  China’s central bank about weaker credit growth in the country. Governor Pan Gongsheng stated in a speech that it would be difficult for various types of credit to increase by more than 10% as they had in the past. 

South Korea’s Kospi, on the other hand, lost 0.8% to 2,784.26. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 went up by 0.3% to 7,796.26.