This photo taken on October 23, 2022 shows people looking at fruit and vegetables outside a supermarket along a covered shopping street in Tokyo.
Richard A. Brooks | Afp | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets are largely set to open lower on Friday as investors on Wall Street continued to rotate out of tech stocks and take profits from the rally in equities in recent weeks.
“There’s some profit taking,” said Keith Buchanan, senior portfolio manager at Globalt Investments. “I kind of cringe a bit if the profit taking occurs five days into a trade, but that just shows us the magnitude of what we’ve seen as far as the rotation.”
Over in Asia, traders will be on the lookout for continued rotation out of tech in the region after chip-related stocks plunged Thursday across Taiwan, Japan and South Korea.
Japan’s inflation numbers for June will also be released on Friday and provide insight on the Bank of Japan’s moves when it meets July 30 and 31. A strong inflation report would afford the central bank room to increase its interest rates.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 futures indicated that the market could go either way, with the futures contract in Chicago at 40,180 and its counterpart in Osaka at 40,020 compared to the previous close of 40,126.35.
Futures for Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 stood at 7,930, slightly lower than its last close of 8,036.5.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures were at 17,582, also lower than the HSI’s last close of 17,778.41.