Asia markets fall as investors digest Fed remarks; Japan and South Korea both down 3%

SINGAPORE — Asia-Pacific markets fell across the board on Thursday as investors reacted to an overnight update from the U.S. Federal Reserve that indicated the central bank plans to raise interest rates as soon as March.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 3.3% while the Topix was down 2.3%. Over in South Korea, the benchmark Kospi dropped 3.13% and in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index and the tech-focused Hang Seng Tech index dropped 2.56% and 4.61%, respectively.

Chinese mainland shares also declined: The Shanghai Composite slipped 0.88%, and the Shenzhen component was down 1.52%.

In Australia, shares retraced earlier gains as the ASX 200 fell 2%. Markets in South Asia and Southeast Asia also sold off: India’s Nifty 50 was down 1.87%, Singapore’s Straits Times Index fell 0.59%, and Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite declined 0.15%.

The MSCI Asia ex-Japan index was down 2.23%.

Thursday’s session in the Asia-Pacific followed overnight declines on Wall Street where the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the day down 129 points, after gaining more than 500 points at one point, following the Fed’s update.

The Taiwan market is closed for a holiday on Thursday.

In South Korea, shares of Samsung Electronics fell 2.46% after the company reported a 53% jump in operating profit in the fourth quarter of 2021 compared to the year before, but it was down 12% from the previous three months.

The global chipmaker said its money-making memory business expects server demand to grow in 2022 as companies increase their investments into information technology, but supply chain issues are set to persist.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong-listed shares of major Chinese tech names were also down sharply: Alibaba shares fell 6.76%, JD was down 4.92%, Meituan fell 7.82%, Baidu was down 3.84% and Tencent lost 3.21%. Bilibili plunged 11.5%.

Block shares trading in Australia also fell 5.75% following a report that Apple is planning to allow merchants to receive payments with a phone tap instead of using hardware attachments like those produced by Square.

Block is founded and led by Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and was formerly called Square.

The Federal Open Market Committee said a quarter-percentage point increase to its benchmark short-term borrowing rate is likely forthcoming — it would be the Fed’s first hike since December 2018.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell indicated at a news conference that the U.S. central bank had “quite a bit of room to raise interest rates without threatening the labor market.” Inflation stateside is running at its hottest level in nearly 40 years.

While the Fed’s post-meeting statement did not provide a specific time for when the hike would come, indications suggest it could happen as soon as at its March meeting.

“The Fed also used this meeting to continue discussion on balance sheet normalisation and released a set of principles on its approach to shrinking the balance-sheet. Of most importance was a desire to make it predictable but sensitive to both the economy and markets,” the ANZ analysts said.

Major U.S. stock market averages reversed gains after Powell’s comments.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.4% on Wednesday at 34,168.09. It was up more than 500 points before the Fed update. The S&P 500 slid 0.2% to 4,349.93, while the Nasdaq Composite ended the session almost flat at 13,542.12, buoyed by Microsoft’s post-earnings gain.

Oil prices fell Thursday during Asian trading hours: U.S. crude futures were down 0.97% while global benchmark Brent declined 0.93%.

In overnight trade, prices rose more than 2% amid growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine, where experts say fears of Moscow’s invasion of the Eastern European country remain. Brent prices hit $90 at one point, but pulled back slightly.

Elsewhere, South Korea’s military said that North Korea fired what appears to be two ballistic missiles on Thursday, Reuters reported. The reclusive state has conducted six missile tests this month.

Meanwhile, spot gold declined after the Fed’s latest comments, falling as much as 1.8% to its lowest in a week at $1,815.06, according to Reuters. It last traded at $1,815 in Asia on Thursday.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, last traded at 96.640, up from 95.948.

In other currencies, the Japanese yen traded at 114.63 per dollar, while the Australian dollar was at $0.7080.

— CNBC’s Saheli Roy Choudhury, Jeff Cox, Hannah Miao and Fred Imbert contributed to this report.