Asian Markets Quite Lackluster on the Day

The financial equity bourses in the Asian and Pacific Rim were quite lackluster on the day as was the Forex market. This comes after weaker-than-expected trade data from China, yesterday, dampened global growth sentiment.

In Japan, the headline stock exchange, the Nikkei 225, was down 0.05 percent as it retraced earlier gains of over 0.12 percent. The broader Topix, in Tokyo, fell 0.14 percent. In South Korea, the Kospi Composite Index was up by nearly half a percentage point. In The Down Under, the S&P ASX 200 was up 0.07 percent in late-morning trade as the materials sub-sector lost 0.7 percent and the heavily weighted financial sub-sector she 0.12 percent.

Australia’s major miners were mostly lower as shares of Rio Tinto, down 1.6 percent, and Fortescue, down 1.4 percent, led the way lower. BHP Billiton was down 1.3 percent on the day.

The financial markets are open today in Thailand, despite the death of their 88 year old monarch BhumibolAdulyadej, who died yesterday. He led the country through decades of change and was highly regarded.

Looking at the Forex markets, the US Dollar index, which measures the almighty buck against a basket of six other currencies, was slightly higher. At the time of this report the Dollar index was trading at 97.58, which is up from the 96.6 level from earlier this week.

Most of the major G-10 currencies pairs were relatively mixed this morning the USD/JPY was trading at 103.66, near yesterday’s close at 103.68. The AUD/USD was at 0.7590 which was up from 0.7552 earlier in the morning trade session. The GBP/USD Forex market was higher at 1.2250. This was up from the earlier low which was at 1.2215.

Looking at the energy market, oil prices were higher during US trading hours after data showed that there had been drawdowns in diesel and gasoline. There was a buildup in crude oil inventories. The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed that crude oil stocks rose by 4.9 million barrels for the week that ended October 7. This was well above analyst expectations of a 700,000 increase. This data was released yesterday morning at 11:00 am EST.

Turning towards company news, in Asia this morning, shares of Korean electronics giant, Samsung Electronic were slightly higher after announcing they would take a $3 billion dollar loss in operating profit in the final quarter of this year. This is thanks to the loss of revenue from the fire prone Galaxy Note 7 which was cancelled. There was also a massive recall of devices.