Investing.com - Asian shares were mixed on Friday with the focus still on the China yuan, but more for the effects of this week’s devaluation over the medium term.
The Nikkei 225 fell 0.35%, while the Shanghai Composite rose 0.83% and the S&P/ASX 200 eased 0.52%.
Overnight, U.S. stocks were mixed after the close on Thursday, as gains in the Consumer Services, Financials and Consumer Goods sectors led shares higher while losses in the Oil & Gas, Telecoms and Basic Materials sectors led shares lower.
At the close in NYSE, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.03%, while the S&P 500 index fell 0.13%, and the NASDAQ Composite index lost 0.21%.
On Thursday, moves by the People's Bank of China soothed markets by insisting there is no basis for further devaluation of the yuan.
Despite further efforts from the PBOC to stabilize its falling currency, USD/CNY remained at near four-year highs at 6.40 after the Chinese central bank cut the Yuan Reference Rate by 1.1%.
During a press conference in Beijing, PBOC deputy governor Yi Gang said the central bank is hoping to accelerate foreign exchange market development by improving its yuan pricing mechanism both offshore and on the China mainland. In addition, Gang emphasized that the PBOC has ample foreign exchange reserves to provide strong support for significant depreciations in the currency. Gang also went to great lengths to dismiss reports that the PBOC could depreciate the yuan by as much as 10% on a long-term basis.
In the U.S., initial jobless claims remained near historic lows at 274,000 last week, just above consensus estimates of 270,000. The four-week average, meanwhile, fell by 1,750 to 266,250, a level approximately 15,000 lower from a month earlier.
The report comes days after the U.S. Labor Department provided an optimistic outlook for the labor market after reporting that non-farm payrolls for the month of July increased by 215,000, while the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.3%. Elsewhere, U.S. retail sales surged by 0.6% last month, above analysts' expectations for a 0.5% gain. The U.S. Census Bureau also upwardly revised retail sales figures for May and June, providing optimism for positive overall gains for the second quarter.