Global Markets: Asian shares ease
Concerns about the growth slowdown in China, the world's top consumer of raw materials and the second-largest economy, also weighed on sentiment as investors took profits from last week's rallies.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.4 percent. The index touched its highest point since May 3 on Monday, rallying some 3 percent since the Fed launched a third round of bond buying known as quantitative easing (QE) on Thursday, spurring a broad based jump in riskier assets.
European shares slipped from 14-month highs on Monday as traders booked profits while U.S. stocks also paused after surging nearly five-year highs last week. Commodity-reliant Australian shares fell 0.2 percent while Shanghai shares dropped 0.5 percent on Tuesday.
Investors are really in defensive mode today, and probably will stay that way until Thursday, when we get the fresh read on manufacturing out from China, said Juliana Roadley, a market analyst at Commonwealth Securities, referring to the HSBC flash PMI.
Reflecting how the country's resources sector is losing steam as slackening demand from top customer China drove down commodity prices, Australia on Tuesday revised down minerals and energy export revenues by 9 percent to A$190 billion ($200 billion) in the year to June 30, 2013. It also cut its
Be the first to comment.
