Shares were mostly lower in Asia on Friday after Wall Street benchmarks extended losses amid uncertainty over rising coronavirus cases and the risks to pandemic recoveries.
Stocks fell in Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai but rose in Hong Kong. U.S. futures and oil prices were nearly unchanged.
The Bank of Japan kept its policy settings intact Friday but downgraded its growth forecast for the current fiscal year slightly, to 3.5%-4% from 3.5%-4.4%. It said the outlook for the world’s No. 3 economy was “highly unclear” and depends on how the COVID-19 situation unfolds.
Tokyo reported a 6-month high number of new cases on Thursday, 1,308, just over a week before the Olympic Games are due to begin, a year later than originally planned due to the pandemic. With most of its population not fully vaccinated, many in Japan worry the Olympics will raise the risks of further outbreaks at a time when the delta variant of COVID-19 is causing flare-ups worldwide.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 0.8% to 28,060.61 while the Kospi in Seoul declined 0.6% to 3,266.65. The Shanghai Composite index declined less than 0.1% to 3,563.79. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5% to 28,121.00. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 edged up less than 0.1% to 7,339.70.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 1.32% from 1.30% late Thursday.
On Thursday, major U.S. stock indexes closed mostly, pulling back further from the record highs they reached at the start of the week.
