Asian markets drop sharply as global sentiment under pressure

Asia markets were down on Monday, following a weak close in Wall Street on Friday following a better-than-expected employment report that pushed rate speculation higher.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 was down almost two and a half percent to 22,682.08 in late trading hours. Australia’s ASX 200 and South Korea’s Kospi lost one and a half percent in average.

Energy-related and commodity-dependent stocks contributed most losses as the US continued to recover across the board, with the the US dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major currencies, trading 0.03 percent higher at 89.06 by the time of this writing.

Last week, the Dow Jones industrial average futures ended on a lower note, down 123 points. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq futures dropped 6.75 points and 10.5 points respectively.

The US Labor Department said on Friday the economy added 200,000 jobs in January, outperforming analysts’ estimation. Average hourly earnings were up 2.9 percent.

Labor market conditions, along with inflation, are carefully monitored by US policymakers in order to justify further monetary policy adjustments. The closest the economy gets to full employment, the likeliest the Federal Reserve will continue to raise interest rates in the future.

Last week, the Federal Open Market Committee opted to keep interest rates in a range between 1.25 and 1.50 percent, while reassuring its three-rate-hike projection for 2018.

<<< Asian Stock Indexes at 07:50 GMT >>>

Australia ASX S&P -101.40 -1.63% 6,128.40

Shanghai Composite +25.42 +0.73% 3,487.50

Hong Kong Hang Seng -216.03 -0.66% 32,385.75

Japan Nikkei 225 -592.45 -2.55% 22,682.08

Taiwan TSEC 50 Index -179.98 -1.62% 10,946.25

<<< Next in Europe >>>

Traders will be looking ahead to services PMIs in Germany at 08:55 GMT, the Eurozone at 09:00 GMT and the United Kingdom as of 09:30 GMT. Attention will also be directed to EU retail sales for December at 10:00 GMT.

<<< Next in the United States >>>

Traders will be paying attention to the release of Markit’s composite and services PMIs for January in the US as of 14:45 GMT, as well as ISM non-manufacturing PMI scheduled fifteen minutes later.

Fort Financial Services