Stocks slip on growth concerns; China's yuan slips as key rate eased

Emerging market stocks fell on Friday on mounting worries about economic growth, while China's yuan hit session lows after the central bank cut a key rate, freeing up about $70 billion for banks as it seeks to stimulate a slowing economy.

The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said it would cut the reserve requirement ratio, or the amount of cash that banks must hold as reserves, by 25 basis points, effective from Dec. 5.

The yuan USDCNY slipped 0.3% against a recovering dollar, to last trade at 7.168.

Citi Strategists said that while it could create room for adjustment in December in the benchmark loan prime rate, there is limited room for further monetary easing in the medium term as the PBOC becomes more mindful of the inflation risk once China moves towards the post-pandemic era.

Most other emerging market currencies also fell as the dollar inched up, but with the greenback on course for a weekly loss thanks to the U.S. Federal Reserve's less-hawkish rhetoric this week, an index of riskier currencies (.MIEM00000CUS) was on course for a weekly gain.

Its shares counterpart EEFS fell 0.3% as most major bourses in the emerging market universe fell. The index looked to end the week flat.

Bucking the trend, a rally in property shares lifted mainland China indexes after sources said the central bank was set to offer cheap loans to financial firms for buying bonds issued by property developers, the strongest policy support yet for the crisis-hit sector. .

Inflows to EM equities increased in the latest week to over $1.1 billion from $734 million last week, JP Morgan data showed.

Hungary's forint EURHUF rose against the euro but was still down about 0.9% on the week. Hungary expects to receive a total of about 7 billon euros worth of European Union funds next year from various EU programmes, the government said on Thursday.

"The Hungarian government's reassurances amount to little – the European Commission (EC) is blocking it... hence official confirmation of a resolution must come from that source before it can act as relief for the market," said Tatha Ghose, EM and FX analyst at Commerzbank.

In Ghana, sovereign dollar-denominated bonds fell as much as 1.4 cent in the dollar after Deputy Finance Minister John Kumah said the country is considering a "haircut" of up to 30% on its overseas debt. (XS2325747637=TE)