Asia Pacific major indices continued to fall on Thursday morning (18 Oct, 9:30 AM, GMT+7, Bangkok time). This is already a few consecutive down days as key US economic data still give a bearish view. The US 10-year treasury yield is already at 4.949%, the highest since 2007, while the US 30-year mortgage rate also broke above 8%, the highest since 2000 as well.
Japan’s NIKKEI was a loss leader today with 1.64% to 31,517.09, despite the higher than expected trade surplus at 62.4 billion yen. South Korea’s KOSPI followed with a 1.49% drop to 2,425.81 as the Bank of Korea still holds the interest rate at 3.5%. Hong Kong’s HSI also fell by 1.5% to 17,466.9. Other major indices dropped by a lesser percentage except Taiwan’s TWII that edged up by 0.14% to 16,464.62.
On the other hand, last night the US stock market swung down after the mentioned key data was announced. Dow Jones (DJIA) dropped by 0.98% to 33,665.08. NASDAQ also fell by 1.62% to 13,314.3 and S&P 500 plunged by 1.34% to 4,314.6, while VIX jumped by 7.49% to 19.22, indicating high volatility and worries in the markets.
In addition, last night commodities Futures were still volatile, after the oil inventories data published at the lower than expected which indicated higher oil demand, WTI swung up over $89 per barrel but cooled down by 0.65% and closed at $87.75. Brent as well fell by 0.8% to $90.76. This is possibly due to the ease of Israel-Gaza and Venezuela concerns.
As for the morning, WTI still hover around the same level but dropped 0.38% from the opening to $87.98 a barrel as the contract would expire on tomorrow, while Brent also dropped by 0.66% to $90.9 per barrel. Furthermore, the gold price still continued to rise last night but fell by 0.35% to $1,961.5 per Troy ounce this morning.
