Asian equities follow Wall Street down the tubes on Fed tantrum

• US Fed rate hike drives equities further off-balance, sending Asian markets into bear territory.
• Asian markets are broadly lower as investors flee Fed’s  ‘aggressive’ monetary policy stance.

Asian equities followed Wall Street’s lead, declining sharply for Thursday as investors throw a hissy fit on the US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates 0.25% one last time in 2018.  

Fed chairman Jerome Powell downplayed overarching market volatility, and doubled down on the Fed’s current commitment to reversing QE programs, though the Fed’s dot-plot has shifted lower from three anticipated rate hikes in 2019 to only two. Stock traders have not taken kindly to the Fed’s punishment, taking the central bank’s moves personally and pulling the plug on stocks across the board for Thursday.

Japanese indexes have gone full-bear as Asia investors reverse out of Japan’s stock markets, sending the Nikkei 225 plummeting -3.35% and counting on the day, while Tokyo’s Topix is similarly battered, declining -2.80%. Investor sentiment is relatively more stable in China, though stocks are still seeing red for Thursday as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng retreats -1.05% and Shanghai dips by -0.70%.

Australia’s markets are faring poorly as well, with the ASX 200 slumping -1.35%, and the MSCI broad Asia-Pacific index is seeing moderate balance on the day, up a meager 0.16%, but over three-quarters of the stocks that make up the emerging market index are nevertheless seeing declines for the day.

Nikkei 225 Technical Levels