BEIJING — Asian stock markets declined Monday after Wall Street ended last week lower and China tightened anti-virus controls.
The Nikkei 225
NIK,
The Shanghai Composite Index
SHCOMP,
The Kospi
180721,
Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index
SPX,
Asian trading may be “muted to lower” after Wall Street’s “failed attempt” at a rebound following the jobs report, said Yeap Jun Rong of IG in a report.
Traders are uneasily watching the Fed after chair Jerome Powell said Aug. 26 that interest rates have to stay elevated to extinguish pressure for prices to rise. That dashed hopes the Fed might back of due to signs U.S. economic activity is cooling.
The Fed has raised interest rates four times this year, twice by 0.75 percentage points, triple its usual margin.
Central banks in Europe and Asia also have raised rates, fueling worries they might derail global economic growth.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
Forecasters warned that high wage gains might reinforce the Fed’s belief that more aggressive rate hikes are needed.
The Nasdaq composite
COMP,
The U.S. market has given up much of the gains made in July and August when traders hoped the Fed might ease up.
Traders expect another 0.75 percentage point rate hike at this month’s Fed meeting, according to CME Group.
Also Friday, Russian state-run energy giant Gazprom announced a suspension of gas supply through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany might be prolonged. The company said last Wednesday the flow of gas would be stopped for three days due to urgent maintenance work.
In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude
CLV22,
The dollar
USDJPY,