Asian deals mixed before earnings

Tokyo – Asian stocks were mixed on Wednesday as investors took a wait-and-see attitude ahead of earnings reports and possible moves by central banks.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.2% to close at 28,606.76. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose nearly 0.1% to 7,365.50. South Korea’s Kospi rose less than 0.1% to 2,573.58. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.2% to 20,410.16. The Shanghai Composite fell 0.6% to 3,371.66.

The news that China’s economic growth accelerated to 4.5% annualized in the most recent quarter did not have much of an impact on stocks. While consumption and retail sales grew, other indicators such as industrial output and fixed asset investment showed weak and uneven recovery.

“While the worst may still be over, it suggests that the recovery is more gradual than a one-time miracle,” IG market analyst Yeap Jun Rong said in a report.

After a tortuous day of trading, Wall Street trading was largely unchanged. The S&P 500 rose 0.1% to 4,154.87 after oscillating between modest gains and losses throughout the day.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell less than 0.1% to 33,976.63 and the Nasdaq Composite fell less than 0.1% to 12,153.41.

Lockheed Martin was one of Wall Street’s big price risers. It rose 2.4% after reporting earnings for the latest quarter that beat analyst expectations.

Bank of America has since risen 0.6% Better-than-expected profit reporting It led to a day of trading ups and downs. The majority of companies have so far exceeded expectations early in this reporting season.

The bar was low amid Wall Street concerns about still-high inflation, much higher interest rates and slowing growth in some parts of the economy.The analyst entered this report his season Predict the steepest drop Earnings per share for S&P 500 companies have increased since the pandemic hit the economy in 2020.

Some companies have stumbled by failing to meet expectations. Goldman Sachs tumbled 1.7% as earnings beat analyst expectations despite better-than-expected earnings.

Healthcare stocks were generally weaker, with the largest weighting in the S&P 500 among the 11 sectors that make up the index. Johnson & Johnson fell 2.8% despite reporting stronger-than-expected earnings and raising its dividend.

Dozens more S&P 500 reports will be released later this week. These companies include well-known companies such as AT&T, Tesla and Procter & Gamble.

Wall Street’s attention will also turn to reports from smaller regional banks such as KeyCorp and Zions Bancorp, whose stocks tumbled last month following the second and third-largest U.S. bank failures in history. fell down.

The concern was that customers could withdraw their deposits from banks en masse, similar to the runaway that overthrew Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Most of the focus is on local banks, rather than large “too big to fail” banks like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America.

those big banks Reported better gains so far Larger than expected, its enormous size may have helped lure sediment into the chaos. Their strength has helped calm the market.

A bigger concern for the economy is that the banking industry’s woes could cause lending to retreat, putting pressure on an economy already strained under the weight of much higher interest rates.

The Federal Reserve has hiked interest rates at a breakneck pace over the last year in hopes of slowing high inflation. High interest rates can stifle inflation, but they only slow the economy as a whole in one blunt move, increasing the risk of recession and driving down investment prices.

Inflation has slowed but remains high, and traders widely expect the Fed to raise rates again at its next meeting in May.

In energy trading, US benchmark crude fell 47 cents to $80.39 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. International benchmark Brent crude fell 44 cents to $84.33 a barrel.

In currency trading, the US dollar rose to 134.73 yen from 134.12 yen. The euro fell from he $1.0975 to he $1.0951.