Japanese household spending falls in May
By Laura He and Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Japan received some mixed economic data on Friday, but stocks slid anyway, mostly due to a stronger yen.
The Nikkei Average JP:NIK -1.40% retreated 1.4%, marking its biggest drop since mid-May. The closing level of 15,095.00 was the lowest in more than week. For the week, the index posted a 1.7% loss, snapping a five-week winning streak.
The broader Topix index JP:I0000 -0.81% settled 0.8% lower on Friday.
Slamming equities was a stronger yen USDJPY -0.32% , which traded at ÂĄ101.42 per dollar from ÂĄ101.66 per dollar on Thursday.
On the same day, Japan’s official data showed the country’s unemployment rate dropped to 3.5% in May, the lowest level since 1997, and the May core consumer-price index rose 3.4% from a year earlier, in line with market forecasts.
However, household spending fell a price-adjusted 8% in May compared with a year earlier, indicating the shadow of the consumption-tax hike still looms. The fall was much worse than a 2% decrease forecast by economists in a Wall Street Journal poll.
Meanwhile, other Asian markets closed lower. The Shanghai Composite Index CN:SHCOMP -0.11% inched down 0.1%, Sydney’s S&P/ASX 200 AU:XJO -0.35% declined 0.4%, and South Korea’s Kospi Composite index KR:SEU -0.33% lost 0.3%. However, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index HK:HSI +0.10% picked up 0.1%.
In Japan, tech exporters were among top underperformers, with semiconductor manufacturer Renesas Electronics Corp. JP:6723 -3.25% down 3.3%, IT service provider Fujitsu JP:6702 -1.96% off 2%, and industrial robot maker Fanuc Corp. JP:6954 -1.92% lower by 1.9%.
Other market movers included Standard Chartered PLC HK:2888 -4.46% , which tumbled 4.5% in Hong Kong trading, after the bank issued a profit warning.
China data: Slowdown surfaces in profit numbers
Chinese data are out on overall earnings at the nation’s largest industrial corporations, with growth still strong but slowing.
For May, profit was up 8.9% from a year earlier, a robust pace but still 0.7 of a point below what it was in April.
More importantly, the gains are lagging what major Chinese enterprises saw last year. Much of the profit data are reported on a cumulative basis, and on those terms, the January-May profit growth was 9.8%, marking the only time the number has fallen below 10% in the past 12 months, with the exception of this year’s January-February Lunar New Year period — always a slow time — when the expansion rate cooled to 9.4%.
The fact that industrial profit rose 12.2% last year underlines the slowdown now facing Chinese companies.
Then again, not all types of enterprise are equal: Private companies managed a 12.9% profit gain, foreign-funded companies (including, for the data’s purposes, those from Hong Kong and Macau) saw their earnings rise 12.4%, but the state-owned corporations saw profit improve by a slim 3.4%.
