Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose Monday, with investors awaiting a slew of economic data this week including China industrial data and India’s third-quarter GDP numbers.
On Monday, Singapore released its inflation figures for October. Its headline inflation rate fell to 1.4%, the lowest rate of inflation since March 2021.
This was lower than the 1.8% expected by economists polled by Reuters and down from 2% in the previous month.
Looking ahead, October inflation readings from Australia are due Wednesday, and November inflation numbers from Japan’s capital city of Tokyo will be released on Friday. Tokyo’s inflation figures are widely considered a leading indicator of nationwide trends.
South Korea central bank’s rate decision is due Thursday.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.28% to close at 8,417.6, hitting a new all-time closing high. The index also reached a new intraday high of 8,462.1 during the trading session.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was 1.3% up, ending at 38,780.14, while the broad-based Topix rose 0.71% to 2,715.6.
South Korea’s Kospi gained 1.32% and finished at 2,534.34, and the small-cap Kosdaq saw a larger rise of 2.93% to 696.83.
In contrast, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 0.3% in its last hour of trade, while mainland China’s CSI 300 was down 0.46% to close at 3,848.09.
On Friday in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a new high, capping off a winning week for stocks.
The blue-chip Dow gained 426.16 points, or 0.97%, to 44,296.51, a new all-time closing high and its third straight positive session.
The S&P 500 added 0.35% to finish its fifth winning day in a row, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose 0.16%.
Gains were restricted by slides of 3.2% and 1.7% in Nvidia and Alphabet, respectively.
source: cnbc.com
