The main Asian stock market indices were mostly down on Tuesday. The market is overshadowed by, among other things, the slow recovery of the Chinese economy and concern about how painful the US president-elect will be Donald Trump brings along.
In the eight countries, at Finnish time, Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was down 0.9 percent and the broader Topix was down 0.1 percent. South Korea’s Kospi was down 1.6 percent.
Mainland China’s CSI 300 was down 0.5 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down as much as 2.7 percent.
Among other things, a semiconductor manufacturer partially owned by the Chinese state fell on the Hong Kong stock exchange SMIC (-5,8 %).
Semiconductor companies are at the center of the trade war between the United States and China. Over the weekend, it was widely reported that the US Department of Commerce has urged the Taiwanese TSMC to stop exporting its most advanced chips used for artificial intelligence applications to China.
TMSC, the world’s largest semiconductor contract manufacturer, was down 3.2 percent. Taiwan’s Taiex index was down 2.3 percent on Tuesday.
In addition to trade policy, Taiwan is a geopolitically sensitive area, as a possible Chinese military attack on the country has been in the horror pictures for several years.
US support has served as a deterrent to China, but Trump’s view of the situation is clearly different based on his public statements. Joe Biden from the position of the administration. With the result of the US presidential election, the concern that the US may lose its support for Taiwan is on the surface again.
At the time of the review, the Australian ASX 300 index was down 0.1 percent, particularly weighed down by energy and mining companies. Australian uranium producer Paladin Energy was down 28.9 percent after the company lowered its guidance for uranium production for the current year.
Paladin now expects full-year uranium production to reach 3.0-3.6 million pounds, up from its previous guidance of 4-4.5 million pounds. In the same context, Paladin removed its guidance for next year.
It’s happening in the commodity market
The price of uranium reached its highest level in more than a decade in January, but has since fallen from the peaks at the beginning of the year. Currently, uranium is priced at around $79 per pound, the lowest price in nearly a year.
The supply of uranium is likely to increase in the next few years. The United States plans to invest approximately three billion euros in the development of domestic uranium production, after the supply has been limited due to the sanctions against Russia.
Russian, one of the world’s largest uranium producers Kazatomprom recently reported that it increased its uranium production by approximately 16 percent in the third quarter compared to the comparison period last year.
Since the beginning of the week, China’s weak outlook has weighed on the prices of iron ore and copper, among others. The price of raw ore used as a raw material for the steel industry was below 100 dollars per ton on Monday, and was around 103 dollars per ton at the time of the review.
The price of silver continued to fall and hit its lowest level in almost two months. At the time of review, it was priced at well over $30 per ounce. Gold was also down at about $2,608 an ounce, the lowest level in about a month.
On the oil market, the price of Brent crude oil was roughly at Monday’s level after several days of decline. At the time of the review, its price was around USD 72 per barrel.
Among other things, the weak economic development of China is reflected in the price of oil, as a result of which both the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries Opec and the International Energy Agency IEA recently revised downward their forecasts for oil demand growth this year and next.