On Monday, Chinese stocks went down as investors looked at mixed trade data from the country. Most Asian stocks also went down as investors expected the Federal Reserve to tighten its policies even more.
As of 23:46 ET (03:30 GMT), the Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 index of China’s most important stocks was down 0.2%. Consumer and service sector stocks fell the most because China’s imports didn’t grow as much as expected in July. This made investors worry about local demand.
But the Shanghai Composite Index went up by 0.2% because industrial stocks did better than expected and a bigger-than-expected jump in exports showed that Chinese goods were still in high demand. The country also made a record amount of money from trade.
But worries about slowing demand on the mainland spread to other Asian markets since China is the biggest export market for most of Asia.
The stock markets in Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines all went down by between 0.2% and 0.5%.
The general mood was hurt by a big jump in the dollar, which happened after U.S. payroll data last week was much better than expected. The reading gives the Fed more room to sharply raise interest rates, which is widely expected to take money away from Asian markets.
This week, there is also a lot of attention to important U.S. CPI inflation data, which is expected to play a role in the Fed’s plans to raise interest rates.
The Nikkei 225 index went up 0.3% because Japan’s current account deficit in July was less than expected. But the numbers also showed that Japan had a deficit for the first time in five months. This was because the rising cost of imports outweighed exports.
The Australian stock market was flat because the gains in mining and bank stocks were mostly canceled out by the losses in consumer and service sector stocks that were tied to China.
Even though China’s imports went down, data showed that the country’s strong desire for commodities, most of which come from Australia, stayed strong.
Copper miner, OZ Minerals Ltd (ASX: OZL) shares went up by more than 34% after the company turned down a $5.8 billion takeover offer from BHP Group Ltd (ASX:BHP). The price of BHP stock went up by 0.6%.