A customer places a Japanese 10,000 yen banknote on a checkout counter while making a purchase at an Akidai YK supermarket in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, June 27, 2022.
Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell Friday, with investors assessing November pay and household spending out from Japan.
Real household spending in Japan fell 0.4% year on year in November, a softer fall compared to the 0.6% decline expected by a Reuters poll of economists.
The fall was also less than the 1.3% decline seen in October.
The average real income per household stood at 514,409 yen ($3,252.98) in November, up 0.7% from the previous year.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.41% on its open, with the broad based Topix seeing a smaller loss of 0.27%.
South Korea’s Kospi was the only outlier, gaining 0.21%, but the small cap Kosdaq was down 0.14%
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 reversed earlier gains to trade marginally below the flatline.
Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index were last at 19,320, pointing to a stronger open compared to the HSI’s close of 19,240.89.
Overnight in the U.S., markets were closed on Thursday due to the funeral of former president Jimmy Carter, but traders will assess labor data on Friday stateside, with nonfarm payroll numbers for December.
Economists expect the Bureau of Labor Statistics on Friday morning to report a gain of 155,000 in nonfarm payrolls, a step down from the surprising 227,000 increase in November but about in keeping with the four-month average. The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at 4.2%.
— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.
