FINANCIAL MARKET REVIEW FOR DECEMBER 04, 2017 In the first session of today’s week, Asia-Pacific stock markets had a largely muted start to the week, though some buying built into midday, as investors mulled over the U.S. Senate’s passing of a tax-reform proposal and the special counsel’s probe of President Donald Trump’s election campaign. Former national security adviser Michael Flynn pleaded guilty Friday to lying to federal investigators. The probe had an impact on Friday’s market action in the U.S., aggravated in part by what later was proved to be an erroneous report about Mr. Flynn and the investigation. S&P 500 futures were recently up 0.6%. The U.S. index finished down 0.2% Friday. Many Asia-Pacific indexes were within 0.3% of Friday’s closes Monday, but the U.S. dollar jumped. The WSJ Dollar Index was recently up 0.3%, with the currency up a half yen versus late-Friday New York levels at ¥112.75. But that didn’t help the Nikkei NIK, -0.49% , which finished morning trading down 0.1% despite 1% to 2% gains in oil firms Inpex 1605, +1.46% and Japan Petroleum 1662, +1.59% . But precision-instrument makers experienced declines, with Olympus 7733, -4.67% down 3.4%. One morning highlight was Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HSI, +0.22%. Japan’s Nikkei share average fell on Monday with weakness in large-cap stocks such as Fanuc and Softbank taking a toll, while tech shares also lost ground, offsetting gains in retail stocks which rose on strong monthly sales. The Nikkei dropped 0.5 percent to 22,707.16. The broader Topix slipped 0.5 percent to 1,786.87, with turnover of only 2.41 trillion yen ($21.36 billion), the lowest in more than a week. Industrial robot maker Fanuc Corp shed 2.0 percent and Softbank Group Corp declined 1.1 percent. Tech shares were sold, with Advantest Corp falling 1.4 percent and Panasonic Corp shedding 1.2 percent. Falling every day last week and logging its first five-session slide in 13 months, the benchmark ended the morning up 0.7% as oil stocks rose there as well. That was despite oil pulling back about 0.5% in Asia following crude’s end-of-week jump, which was stoked by a weaker dollar. Meanwhile, index heavyweight Tencent 0700, +0.88% rebounded 1.8% and insurer Ping An 2318, +2.25%, which also pulled back notably as November ended, rose 2.5%. “The weakness in Tencent and Ping An is attracting interest from value buyers,” said Castor Pang, head of research for Core Pacific-Yamaichi International. Tech in general also started the week solidly. After declines last week, benchmarks in Korea SEU, +1.06% and Taiwan Y9999, +0.48% rose about 0.5%, while the large-cap CSI 300 in China ended the morning up 0.8%. The S&P/ASX 200 XJO, -0.07% was down 0.1%. There were gains for commodity companies, led by big miners BHP Billiton BHP, +1.56% and Rio Tinto RIO, +1.24%, but continued weakness for the country’s major banks. They’re facing a sweeping investigation, now a 12-month inquiry is being set up following a string of finance-industry scandals.
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