TOKYO, Oct 14 — Asian shares tottered today, taking cues from Wall Street's losses and pressured by a continued selloff in oil as investors awaited consumer price data from China this session.
Faced with concerns about a global slowdown, the Monetary Authority of Singapore said today that it will ease its monetary policy for the second time this year by slowing the pace of the Singapore dollar's appreciation.
MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.3 per cent, while Japan's Nikkei stock index shed 1.1 per cent.
On Wall Street yesterday, stocks slipped, with the S&P 500 touching a fresh seven-week high before ending solidly down. S&P 500 e-mini futures edged down about 0.1 per cent in Asian trading.
China's consumer price index will be released later in the session, and could be a major driver of trade because of what it could portend for People's Bank of China policy, said Evan Lucas, market strategist at IG in Melbourne.
"China remains a source of market debate, the bears see a hard landing as inevitable, the bulls continue to see bright spots here and there, and have an unrelenting belief that the PBOC will be the shining white knight riding in with a rate slashing sword to save the day," Lucas wrote in a note to clients today.
The consensus estimate calls for CPI to ease to 1.8 per cent in September from 2.0 per cent in August CNCPI=ECI.
Crude oil prices remained under pressure after the International Energy Agency rekindled fears that the market would remain over-supplied for at least another year despite falls in output from non-OPEC producers.
Brent slumped 0.2 per cent to US$49.16 per barrel, after skidding 1.24 per cent in the previous session, while US crude edged down about 0.1 per cent to US$46.62 per barrel after losing 0.9 per cent overnight.
A weaker dollar also weighed on commodities prices.
The dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of six peers, was down about 0.1 per cent today at 94.707, after falling as low as 94.539 yesterday, its lowest since Sept 18.
The dollar was slightly lower against the yen at 119.72 yen , while the euro added about 0.1 per cent to buy US$1.1386 after rising to a 3 1/2-week high of US$1.1411 overnight. — Reuters
