Asia markets set for lower open as investors await Jackson Hole meeting, assess Japan inflation data

Asia-Pacific markets were set to open lower on Friday as investors await U.S. Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s comments at Jackson Hole.

In the past, Powell has outlined broad policy initiatives and provided clues about the policy path at Jackson Hole.

In Asia, dat from Japan showed the country’s headline inflation at 2.8% in July, unchanged from the previous month.

Core inflation, which strips out prices of fresh food, stood at 2.7%, in line with expectations from economists polled by Reuters and higher than June’s figure of 2.6%.

However, the so called “core-core” inflation rate, which strips out prices of both fresh food and energy and is tracked by the Bank of Japan, fell to 1.9% in July from 2.2% in June.

This is the lowest the “core-core” inflation rate has reached since September 2022.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 futures pointed to a stronger open for the market after the CPI release, with the futures contract in Chicago at 38,225 and its counterpart in Osaka at 38,170 compared to the previous close of 38,211.01.

Futures for Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 were at 7,955, slightly lower than its last close of 8,027.

Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were at 17,490, lower than the HSI’s last close of 17,641.

Overnight in the U.S., the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite saw the largest loss among all three major indexes, shedding 1.67% as technology stocks felt the brunt of Thursday’s declines.

The broad S&P 500 slipped 0.89%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 0.43%.

—CNBC’s Alex Harring and Pia Singh contributed to this report.