Asian
stocks were mostly lower on Friday
amid elevating tensions between the United States and China, and on worries
that the U.S. Congress may not reach consensus on a new fiscal stimulus before
the end-of-the-week deadline.
In
Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index plunged 1.68 percent to 24,512.75, and the
Shanghai Composite Index closed 0.96 percent down at 3,354.04.
Australia’s
S&P/ASX 200 finished 0.62 percent down at 6,004.80, whilst South
Korea’s Kospi index ascended 0.39 percent to 2,351.67.
In
Japan, Nikkei 225 index slumped 0.39 percent to 22,329.94 points.
President
Donald Trump has given an order effective after 45 days that any U.S. resident or
company should not deal with either ByteDance, the Chinese owner of TikTok, and
WeChat, the messaging platform owned by Tencent, and that any violation
to his order would trigger firm penalties.
“The
spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by
companies in the People’s Republic of China continues to threaten the
national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States,” Trump
said.
Secretary
of State Michael Pompeo urged on Thursday U.S. companies to eliminate the two
famous applications from their stores.
Meanwhile,
markets are expecting similar bans on U.S. companies in China in retaliation to
Trump’s executive order.
Tencent
Holdings ended 5.76 percent lower after plummeting 10 percent earlier during
the session.
On
the other hand, still there is high uncertainty whether the U.S. Congress would
agree on the terms of the new fiscal stimulus that targets aiding Americans financially
affected by the pandemic.
Later
in the day, eyes will focus on the U.S. non-farm payrolls that may show a
job-creation pace of 1.53 million in July, which will be much slower than June’s
jobs of 4.8 million.
The dollar index
managed to rebound today after hitting a bottom of 92.46 on Thursday, the
lowest since May 2018, yet still set for its seventh straight weekly decline
this week.