The Japanese stock exchange index rose slightly on Friday. Investors were relaxed after the governmental holiday. As in the United States and Europe, Japanese banks came under pressure after the decision taken by the US Federal Reserve not to raise interest rate this year. As elsewhere in the Far East, pricing changes were limited.
Nikkei index ended up 0.1 percent on a plus side with 21,627.34 points. The Japanese stock market, which remained closed on Thursday due to a national holiday, climbed 0.8 percent this week. At the macroeconomic level, non-food inflation in Japan was 0.7 percent in February. This was slightly lower than economists had expected.
Insurance companies T & D Holdings and Dai-ichi Life Holdings were down 1 percent and 1.2 percent, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group fell 0.5 percent. Banks and insurers benefit from a higher interest rate. Eisai stock trading was interrupted due to excessive sales orders. The Japanese pharmaceutical group and its partner Biogen announced that they would stop joint research on the drug against Alzheimer’s disease.
The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong, meanwhile, fell 0.4 percent, while the Shanghai stock market lost 0.1 percent. China technology company Tencent fell 0.7 percent. The group recorded the slowest profit growth in thirteen years last year. Kospi in Seoul remained almost unchanged, and all Ordinaries in Sydney grew by 0.5% over the weekend.
Lesley Woutersen, one of the co-founders of the EconomicInform gives away all of his free time to the project. He is interested in stock exchange and digital assets. Lesley can be reached by lesley.woutersen@economicinform.com.
