BENGALURU: Emerging Asia stocks fell to a three-week low on Tuesday as rising crude and calls to slow AI development weighed on investor sentiment, while currencies weakened as US rate-hike expectations pushed the dollar to a near two-week high.
The MSCI gauge of emerging market Asian equities fell as much as 1.1 percent to its lowest since August 25, with South Korea and Taiwan, beneficiaries of AI trade, settling 0.9 percent and 0.8 percent lower, after rising earlier.
Meanwhile, oil prices hovered near a four-month high, deepening inflation concerns in Asia’s energy-reliant economies.
Elsewhere, equities of net oil importers such as Thailand and the Philippines fell as much as 0.8 percent and 1.1 percent, respectively.
In Indonesia, Southeast Asia’s largest economy, the rupiah fell to 17,703, its lowest in nearly two weeks, while stocks in Jakarta were on track for a fifth consecutive session of losses, losing 1.1 percent.
That weakened MSCI gauge of EM currencies by 0.4 percent, extending declines to a fourth straight session.
The Taiwan dollar weakened to as much as 31.906 per dollar, its lowest since August 25.
The South Korean won was down 0.9 percent at 1,359.60, near its late-July low.
The Malaysian ringgit fell nearly 0.2 percent to 4.08 per dollar, its weakest level since August 17.
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