Asian stocks mixed as traders digest disappointing data

Asian markets were mixed on Monday following a weak lead from Wall Street, with traders digesting China's activity indexes and the Bank of Japan's interest rates decision.

Australia ASX -7.30 -0.12% 5,976.40 OPEN

Shanghai Comp +3.00 +0.09% 3,393.34 OPEN

Hang Seng Index +10.47 +0.04% 28,346.66 OPEN

Nikkei 225 -0.06 -0.00% 22,011.61 OPEN

TSEC 50 Index +36.93 +0.34% 10,793.80 OPEN

China’s official manufacturing PMI for October came in at 51.6, against an estimated reading of 52. Its non-manufacturing PMI stood at 54.3, falling short from a prior month reading of 55.4.

Also, Japanese industrial production edged down 1.1 percent in September, little less than a predicted 1.5 percent decline. Household spending rose 0.4 percent last month.

The Bank of Japan (BoJ) decided to leave unchanged its current monetary policy configuration, with interest rates at minus 0.1 percent and volume of its asset buying programme at 80 trillion yen per year. The bank continued to express optimism about inflation.

“Medium to long-term inflation expectations are projected to rise as firms’ stance gradually shifts towards raising wages and prices,” the regulator said in its quarterly outlook report.

“As a consequence, the year to year rate of change in the CPI is likely to continue on an uptrend and increase towards 2 percent.”

On the corporate front, tech-giant Samsung reported said third-quarter profit came in at nearly $12.91 billion, tripling last year’s result. Samsung shares added more than 1.6 percent.

Wall Street top three indexes ended in red territory on Monday as financial components declined after reports pointed out the House is analyzing a plan that would “gradually” reduce the country’s corporate tax rate.

Dow Jones Industrial Average: 23,348.74; down 0.36 percent

S&P 500: 2,572.83; down 0.32 percent

Nasdaq Composite: 6,698.96; down 0.03 percent

Meanwhile, speculation over President Donald Trump’s decision of who will lead the Federal Reserve for the next four years continued to add pressure on the dollar.

Trump is likely to announce its decision on Thursday and all eyes are now pointing at Federal Reserve Governor Jerome Powell, who is seen as less hawkish than Janet Yellen.

In Europe, attention will be directed to Eurozone’s consumer price index for October and the unemployment rate for September will be presented at 10:00 GMT.

In the United States, traders will be monitoring the release of third-quarter unemployment cost index at 12:30 GMT and the S&P/Case-Shiller house price index half an hour later. The Conference Board will show its consumer confidence indicator for October at 14:00 GMT.

Fort Financial Services