us stocks pulled back friday notching their worst weekly performance of the year as hot economic data have rekindled worries about restrictive federal reserve policy the sp 500 fell 4228 points or 11 to 397004 the technologyheavy nasdaq composite dropped 19546 points or 17 to 1139494 the bluechip dow jones industrial average shed 33699 points or 1 at 3281692 the three indexes all dropped more than 2 in the holidayshortened week each logging their biggest weekly declines of 2023 investors enthusiasm has quickly waned after a string of reports have indicated the us is seeing stickierthanexpected inflation and a resilient economy keeping the door open for the fed to maintain aggressive monetarytightening measures in order to cool price pressures japanese stocks were lower in early trade dragged by falls in electronics and tech stocks as concerns grow about the feds further tightening following strong us inflation data on friday investors were focusing on the yen bond yields and any policyrelated developments the nikkei stock average was down 05 at 2732083 south koreas benchmark kospi was 15 lower at 238683 in early trade dragged by electronics and energy stocks renewed concerns about the feds policy tightening were prompting risk aversion weighing on local equities usdkrw was 08 higher at 131500 korea gas slumped 71 after its decision to pay no dividend despite betterthanexpected 4q results as the state utility planned to focus more on improving finances hong kongs hang seng index fell 08 to 1984990 tracking wall street losses friday riskoff sentiment was probably the best summary of market movements for now said cmc markets noting fridays strongerthanexpected us inflation data that pressured wall street losses on the benchmark hsi were led by a mixed bag of companies haidilao international climbed 12 after saying it expected a net profit for 2022 versus a net loss in 2021 the hang seng tech index was down 14 at 395507 chinese stocks were mixed in morning trading improving slightly from opening losses the benchmark shanghai composite index was 01 higher at 327064 while the shenzhen composite index fell 02 and the chinext price index was 01 lower the market has been rangebound for the past several weeks as investor sentiment cooled from previous reopeningled enthusiasm and aggressive buying concerns have been rising over how much upside a shares still offer but china securities analysts said that the markets current riskreward profile likely remains favorable the brokerage said it expected the markets rebound momentum to pick up in the longer run the yen strengthened against other g10 and asian currencies in the morning session amid riskoff sentiment which could help support the japanese currencys haven allure the blowout reading of the us core pce price index released friday has kept pressure on the risk environment given fed rateincrease expectations have been recalibrated to be more hawkish following the release of the data ig said usdjpy fell 02 to 13602 audjpy dropped 02 to 9166 and eurjpy was down 02 at 14364 gold edged higher following its recent decline gold fell last week following a hotterthanexpected us pce inflation figure although it is still trading above the 1800oz level said oanda it reckoned that the bearish momentum could be strong if gold manages to break below that level gold prices were likely to continue to wobble as more traders expected us federal reserve interest rates to stay higher for longer it added spot gold rose 02 to 181329oz crudeoil prices were little changed in early asian trade amid doubts about whether opec will continue to keep its production cut intact we assume that the china demand boom and flattish nonopec supply will push the market in deficit from june onwards and lead opec to announce a reversal of its production cut at the june meeting said goldman sachs analysts in a note however opec leaders have emphasized that the october production cut is there to stay for the rest of 2023 and opec has historically responded cautiously to domestic demand pulls out of china they added the frontmonth contract for wti futures was flat at 7631bbl while the frontmonth brent crude contract was down 01 at 8308bbl