Major Asian stock markets ended Friday with losses, following a sharp decline on Wall Street. The Asia Dow, which includes blue-chip companies in the region, plunged 2.45% to 3,268.54. Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 stock exchange slipped 1.67% to close at 28,143.97. The Bank of Japan’s last monetary policy meeting under the leadership of Haruhiko Kuroda on Friday decided to keep interest rate at minus 0.1%. The Hang Seng, the benchmark for blue-chip stocks trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange, struggled the most on Friday, diving 3.04% to 19,319.92 points. China’s Shanghai stock exchange lost 1.40% from the previous close to 3,230.08 points. China’s banks provided 1.81 trillion yuan ($260 billion) in new loans in February, down from a record 4.90 trillion yuan in the previous month but above market expectations. The Singapore benchmark index fell 1.15% to 3,177.43 points while the Indian Sensex benchmark went down by 1.12% to 59,135.13.
Source: Anadolu Agency – English