Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.19% to close at 20,297.72 and the Hong Kong Tech Index fell 3.22%. US-listed Alibaba shares fell more than 4% overnight after the Wall Street Journal reported that company executives had been subpoenaed by authorities investigating the theft of police records. Shares of the tech giant in Hong Kong fell 5.98% by the end of the session. Index heavyweights Tencent and Meituan fell 2.99% and 1.81% respectively. Rising inflation and interest rates and fears of a recession continued to dominate investment markets over the past week. Shane Oliver Chief Economist, AMP Capital

China’s economic data

China’s GDP rose 0.4 percent in the second quarter, compared with 4.8 percent in the first quarter and 1 percent expected by analysts polled by Reuters. Retail sales beat expectations, however, rising 3.1% in June. A Reuters poll of analysts expected no growth from a year ago. Markets in mainland China fell. The Shanghai Composite fell 1.64% to close at 3,228.06, while the Shenzhen Component fell 1.52% to 12,411. The second quarter report is China’s weakest GDP print since the first quarter of 2020, when the Covid pandemic first hit.

Frederick Neumann, co-head of Asia finance at HSBC, said it was not much of a surprise given the severe disruptions to logistics and consumption during the Covid lockdown. But he said the weak GDP report showed the recovery was not as strong as expected. “That means the economy hasn’t really had any headwinds, even in the third quarter,” he told CNBC’s “Street Signs Asia” on Friday. “Perhaps the message here is that we need even more stimulus next, beyond what has been announced in recent weeks and months,” he added.

Asia Pacific Mixed Markets

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.67 percent. Most major indices in the region were down this week. “Inflation and interest rate hikes and fears of a recession have continued to dominate investment markets over the past week,” Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, wrote in a note on Friday. US stock indexes fell on Thursday after disappointing bank earnings. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.46%, or 142.62 points, to 30,630.17, while the S&P 500 fell 0.3% to 3,790.38. The Nasdaq Composite rose 0.03% to end at 11,251.19.

Coins and oil

The US dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of peers, was last at 108.533. The index dipped above 109 briefly in the previous session. The Japanese yen was at 138.83 per dollar, after weakening beyond 139 against the greenback on Thursday. The Australian dollar was at $0.6737. Oil futures rose slowly in Asian trade. U.S. crude rose 0.45 percent to $96.21 a barrel, while Brent crude was 0.8 percent higher at $99.89 a barrel. — CNBC’s Evelyn Cheng, Samantha Subin and Carmen Reinicke contributed to this report.