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Workers assemble a small excavator at a heavy machinery factory in Suzhou city, east China’s Jiangsu province, October 23, 2023.
Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific shares fell on Monday as investors assessed Chinese business activity data released over the weekend while awaiting a raft of data due later in the week.
China released its official Purchasing Managers Index data for August. The manufacturing PMI fell to Six-month minimum 49.1contracting faster than the 49.4 in July.
The reading was also below the median forecast of 49.5 by economists polled by Reuters and marked the fourth straight month that the index has been in contraction territory.
On the other hand, China’s non-manufacturing PMI rose to 50.3 from 50.2 in July.
Upcoming economic data from key markets in the region include inflation data from South Korea, second-quarter GDP data from Australia, and wage and household spending data from Japan later in the week.
“Even if the mortgage refinancing policy is realized, it is not a policy to revive the property market because it has nothing to do with new home demand and mainly benefits existing homeowners,” Zhu Haibin, chief economist at China Central Television, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday.
Zhu Min pointed out that most importantly, this is a policy that supports consumption. He was responding to a question about the recent Bloomberg reportsChina is considering allowing homeowners to refinance up to $5.4 trillion in mortgages
in addition, Caixin Manufacturing PMI Data for August showed an improvement in the country’s manufacturing activity, expanding to a reading of 50.4 from 49.8 in July and beating the 50.0 forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
Japanese Nikkei 225 Index The Nikkei rose 0.35%, while the broad-based Topix index rose 0.11%. The Nikkei index briefly surpassed the 39,000 mark earlier in the session, the first time the index has done so since July 31.
In contrast, South Korea Kospi The small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.30 percent after a slight gain.
Australia S&P/ASX 200 Down 0.27%.
Friday in the US, Dow Jones Industrial Average Setting a new all-time high, the blue-chip index rose 0.55% to close at 41,563.08 points. S&P 500 rose 1.01%, while technology stocks Nasdaq Composite Index Up 1.13%.
Traders on Friday also assessed key inflation data that the Federal Reserve is closely watching.
Personal consumption expenditures price index, Up 0.2% month-on-month The country’s economy grew 2.5% in July from a year earlier, in line with the expectations of economists surveyed by Dow Jones.
Excluding food and energy, prices also rose 0.2% from the previous month.
—CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Pia Singh contributed to this report.
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