Japan shares fell and Chinese markets wavered Monday, after economic data over the weekend highlighted how the country faces hurdles in reaching its growth targets.
The Nikkei Stock Average was down 0.4% and the Shanghai Composite Index gave up early gains to trade near flat. The Bank of Japan starts a two-day policy meeting later today.
Shares and currencies elsewhere were mixed as investors assessed growing expectations that the U.S. Federal Reserve will hold off on raising interest rates later this week.
On Sunday, data showed China's factory output and fixed-asset investment were both weaker-than-expected in August, which shows the government faces challenges to reaching its full-year growth target of about 7%.
"It's a similar story to other recent data we've seen," said Angus Nicholson, market analyst at brokerage IG. Still, he said markets were broadly up, coming off gains in the U.S. on Friday. U.S. stock futures also inched up slightly this morning.
Panic selling in China started to ease last week, as Chinese authorities made fresh attempts to stabilize markets with a mix of stimulus and high-level assurances. That lifted shares in the region, including in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Japan, where benchmarks hadn't risen in weeks.
The potential for higher borrowing costs in the U.S. is still raising worries about a deeper stock selloff, especially as fears about China's growth loom large. In the month to date, shares in Hong Kong and Shanghai are off by a fraction. Japan shares are off even more, by 3.6%.
But stock-market volatility in the U.S. eased in the past two sessions as investors become more confident that the Federal Reserve is unlikely to raise rates, according to traders. In a survey released on Friday, a majority of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal said the Fed won't raise rates on Thursday. Fed officials have acknowledged they will consider the recent market turbulence and the outlook for the global economy when making their decision.
U.S. stocks closed higher Friday, capping their biggest weekly gains in nearly six months.
On Monday, the Hang Seng Index was up 0.8% while the S&P ASX 200 gained 0.4%. South Korea's Kospi was off about 0.3%.
Chinese investors got more positive rhetoric from the government over the weekend, which appeared to help cap losses in Shanghai.
On Sunday, a blueprint released by Chinese authorities outlined plans to enhance state companies' returns by letting them add private investors and to improve state companies' competitiveness overseas by making them larger. The plan represents a modest adjustment to China's brand of state capitalism.
It gave no definitive time frame for reforms but said "decisive results" in reforming state companies must be made by 2020.
Still, "the China data was quite negative. It's a continued mixed story of a two-speed economy," said Mr. Nicholson.
Underscoring investor concerns toward China's volatile stock market, index provider FTSE Russell last week decided against adding shares listed in mainland China to its global indexes. The decision was another blow to China's efforts to attract global capital after MSCI Inc. in June also said it wouldn't include so-called A-shares to its widely-followed emerging-market index.
Elsewhere, the Australian dollar was up 0.4% against the U.S. dollar and the Singaporean dollar was up 0.2%.
The Japanese yen was roughly flat against the U.S. dollar, although the currency should rise as expectations grow for the Fed to hold back on raising rates.
—Mark Magnier, Lingling Wei and Carolyn Cui contributed to this article.
Write to Chao Deng at Chao.Deng@wsj.com
No comments:
Post a Comment