Stocks made small gains while currencies were mixed in Asia on Monday amid cautious trading and reduced liquidity with many markets closed for holidays. Benchmark equity indexes for mainland China, Japan, India and South Korea climbed less than 1%. Other markets including Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia were shut. Appetite for risk taking was damped by concerns over China’s ability to cope after abandoning its Covid Zero policy. This was most evident in a drop in the Australian dollar, which is particularly sensitive to the outlook for demand in China. Amid a new wave of infections, China’s National Health Commission said it would stop publishing daily case numbers for the coronavirus, complicating the task for investors trying to assess the economic impact. The yen advanced versus the dollar as traders considered the possibility of the Bank of Japan raising interest rates next year after last week’s surprise adjustment to its 10-year yield target. The euro was little changed. Figures on Friday showed Japan’s key inflation gauge further accelerated to the fastest pace since 1981, which may support more bets for a shift from the BOJ. Meanwhile, shares on Wall Street ended Friday’s session with gains as investors digested data showing that US inflation is continuing to ease and the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes are serving their purpose. That provided a degree of support for Asian markets, though the S&P 500 and the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 still suffered their third week of losses. Looking across all the year for global equities, 2022 has been the worst annual performance in more than a decade. There will be no cash trading on Monday of Treasuries, which ended a holiday-shortened session lower on Friday. The benchmark 10-year yield climbed the most last week since early April, ending Friday around 3.75%. Bitcoin was little changed below $17,000 on Monday as the crypto world continued to reel from the collapse of FTX. In commodities, everything from oil to gold and copper rose on Friday. Oil posted a substantial weekly gain as Russia said it may cut crude production in response to the price cap imposed by the Group of Seven on its exports, highlighting risks to global supplies in the new year.
Nikkei +0.61% Hang Seng -0.44% CSI +0.59% Shanghai +0.69% Shenzen +1.20%
Eur$ 1.0628 CNH 6.9887 CNY 6.9771 JPY 132.58 GBP 1.2071 CHF 0.9333 RUB 69.1033 TRY 18.6593 WTI$ 79.56 Gold 1,798.20 BTC 1,686.60 ETH 1,221 +0.20%
S&P +0.53% Nasdaq +0.19% EuroStoxx -0.05% FTSE +0.07% Dax +0.34% SMI
Macro :
- China Aims to Rebuild US Ties in Diplomatic Push for 2023
- ECB’s Klaas Knot Sees ‘Quite a Decent Pace of Tightening’ : FT
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