Asian shares fell on Friday, extending their biggest monthly drop since the height of global pandemic lockdowns last March on lingering investor concern over regulatory crackdowns in China on the education, property and tech sectors.
Losses deepened even after reassurances from Chinese regulators and official media that helped to soothe investors’ nerves a day earlier, and following indications from the U.S. Federal Reserve that its bond-buying programme will remain unchanged for now.
A continuing outbreak of Delta variant COVID-19 cases in China’s coastal province of Jiangsu also weighed on the mood on Friday.
Futures pointed to a lower open for European share markets. Euro Stoxx 50 futures fell 0.8%, German DAX futures fell 0.79% and FTSE futures slipped 0.68%.
“It’s clear investors are very rattled by the regulatory crackdown,” said Michael Frazis, portfolio manager at Frazis Capital Partners in Sydney, while adding that the market continues to face other near-term pressure.
“You will have talk about tapering, and you do have a lot of coronavirus beneficiaries which are largely in the tech sector. (Earnings) growth will be slow, and they will be reporting numbers off of very high bases for this time last year… We expect tech indices to be challenged in the near term, but we’re very optimistic over the medium and long term.”
On Friday, MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.33%, taking its losses for the month to more than 7%. Japan’s Nikkei dipped 1.80%, its 11th straight month of falls on the last trading day in the month.
