By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were mixed on Friday morning, alongside U.S. equity futures. Strong earnings from Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) helped to counter a rout in technology shares, while concerns about monetary tightening contributed to market volatility.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 edged down 0.11% by 9:08 PM ET (2:08 AM GMT), while South Korea’s KOSPI rose 0.74%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 was down 0.21%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index jumped 1.87%.
Chinese markets remain closed for the Lunar New Year holidays.
U.S. shares were on an upward trend, with Amazon and Snap Inc . (NYSE:SNAP) shares climbing thanks to strong earnings during the previous session, slowly recovering from a historic $251 billion wipeout for Meta Platforms Inc. (NASDAQ:FB) Amazon could add nearly $200 billion in market value should its stocks hold the 14% gain in after-hours trading to Friday’s U.S. close.
Investors also continued to digest surprisingly hawkish comments from European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde and the Bank of England (BOE) hiking its interest rate to 0.5% as it handed down its policy decision on Thursday.
Volatility across global markets has been the name of the game in 2022 to date, with central banks tightening monetary policy just as the economic recovery from COVID-19 shows signs of slowing down.
“The first half of 2022, we are now experiencing a rates shock,” Brandywine Global Investment Management portfolio manager Tracy Chen told Bloomberg.
“If the U.S. Federal Reserve, BOE, and other EM central banks are too aggressive in hiking interest rates, potentially we are going to face kind of a recession risk in the second half or at least more slowdown in the economy.”
On the data front, U.S. initial jobless claims were at a lower-than-expected 238,000. The Institute of Supply Management (ISM) non-manufacturing purchasing managers' index (PMI) for January was 59.9, while the services PMI was 51.2.
Investors also await the U.S. jobs report for January, including non-farm payrolls, due later in the day.
The looming jobs report “is a reminder that expectations for Fed policy are the key influence on this market right now,” Tom Essaye, a former Merrill Lynch trader who founded The Sevens Report newsletter, told Bloomberg. If the following week’s inflation data is high, it would “rekindle hawkish Fed concerns,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Beijing Winter Olympics will kick off later in the day with the opening ceremony