Citizens are shopping at a supermarket in Nanjing, East China’s Jiangsu province, on March 9, 2024.
Costfoto | Nurphoto | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were set to fall Monday after China’s October inflation numbers came in lower than expected, prompting concerns over the recovery in the world’s second-largest economy.
The country’s inflation rate declined to 0.3%, missing expectations of 0.4% and also lower than the 0.4% seen in September. October figures showed inflation fell for a second straight month.
On Monday, China will also kick off its Singles’ Day — the equivalent of Black Friday in the country. A note from ING on Friday said that Singles’ Day will show how consumption was faring in China.
“We suspect that given the shift toward value-for-money purchases and online shopping, we’ll continue to see solid growth numbers from the event that should comfortably outpace the overall consumption growth momentum.”
Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 20,265, pointing to a weaker open compared to the HSI’s close of 20,728.19.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was also set to fall, with the futures contract in Chicago at 39,305 and their counterpart in Osaka at 39,140 against the index’s last close of 39,500.37
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 started the day down 0.37%.
On Friday in the U.S., the stock market climbed to fresh highs, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 notching their best week in a year after Donald Trump’s election win.
The blue-chip Dow rose 259.65 points, or 0.59%, to close at 43,988.99. During the session, the Dow traded above 44,000 for the first time ever
The S&P 500 gained 0.38% to close at 5,995.54, after briefly trading above 6,000. However, the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite rose just 0.09% to 19,286.78.
— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.