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Asian markets mixed on Friday, Japan down after BoJ

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - As the week ends, equity markets in Asian were mixed. Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite (-0.26%), South Korea’s Kospi (-0.30%), India’s Bombay Sensitive (-0.30%) moved lower, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (+0.80%), Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite (+0.13%) and Singapore’s Straits Times (+0.16%) improved their value.

There was much anticipation for today’s Bank of Japan meeting. By a unanimous vote, the BoJ decided to “conduct money market operations so that the monetary base will increase at an annual pace of about 60-70 trillion yen”, in order to double the monetary base in 2 years. The 2% inflation target wasn’t mentioned. Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average fell to -0.4%, and now its futures trade lower, by -0.30%.

Futures for the German DAX 30 (-0.04%) and the French CAC 40 (-0.28%) are signaling a lower opening ahead of the European session. German import prices report was already published, at -0.1% (MoM) and -2.3% (YoY), less contracting than the expected -0.2% and -2.4%, respectively.

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