Most Asian stock markets went down on Monday as investors became more cautious before a Federal Reserve meeting and important economic data this week. However, Chinese shares went up sharply as trading resumed after a week-long holiday.
China’s Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 and Shanghai Composite indexes went up by 1.2% and 0.7%, respectively. The markets thought that the country’s economy would get a boost from the Lunar New Year holiday being the first one in three years without COVID restrictions. State media said that travel and spending within the country had risen sharply in the past week.
Over the weekend, the Chinese government also said again that it wants to get people to spend more and buy more things in China.
Related: With rising crude prices and optimism about China, Asian stocks rise before the holiday.
Since Asian markets depend on China as a trading partner, a recovery in China’s economy is good news for the rest of Asia. But since the country is also dealing with the worst COVID-19 outbreak it has ever seen, it is hard to say when things will get better.
This week, the markets are waiting for data on Chinese business activity to see how much the economy has grown since anti-COVID measures were eased.
As all eyes turn to a meeting of the Federal Reserve this week, broader Asian markets fell. Even though most people think the central bank will raise interest rates by 25 basis points, its outlook on monetary policy will be closely watched because recent data about the world’s largest economy showed a mixed picture.
The worst performers of the day were technology stocks. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.8%, and major stocks like Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (HK: 9988) and Tencent Holdings Ltd fell by a lot (HK: 0700). This week, a lot of earnings reports from U.S. tech companies are due, and they are likely to give more clues for tech stocks around the world.
However, search engine Baidu Inc (HK: 9888) defied the trend.Its stock price went up by almost 3% after news came out that it plans to launch its own artificial intelligence like ChatGPT.
The KOSPI fell by 1.4%, while the Nikkei 225 index in Japan fell by 0.1%. Later this week, U.S. nonfarm payroll data for January is also due. The labour market is still a key place to look for clues about the economy.
Indian stocks fell for the third day in a row, and the Nifty 50 and BSE Sensex 30 indexes both hit their lowest points in three months. This was due to the fact that shares of the Adani Group didn’t seem to be stopping their slide.
A recent short-seller report by Hindenburg Research made claims that the company had manipulated its stock prices and committed fraud. But shares of the company fell as much as 20%.
Related: Japan’s Nikkei goes up a lot, and Asian stocks go up slowly as a result of the dovish BOJ.
Still, shares of Adani Enterprises Ltd. (NS:ADEL), which is the flagship company of the conglomerate, seemed to have stopped falling and were 2.5% higher in morning trade.
