A study of affluent Chinese released this month by consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that 22% of respondents were negative about the economy when surveyed in May. It just exceeds the 21% seen in October 2022, just before Beijing announced plans to ease its stringent zero-Covid policy.
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Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed as investors look toward private data for China’s factory activity in January.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 added 0.13%, while the Topix added 0.52%. South Korea’s Kospi declined over 2.5%, while the small-cap Kosdaq lost as much as 3%.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were at 27,330, below the benchmark’s last close of 27,387.11.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.57%.
Investors will continue monitoring gold and silver prices after Friday’s sharp declines. Silver, which has more than doubled over the past 12 months, plunged around 30% last Friday, marking the metal’s worst one-day performance since 1980. Gold also dropped around 9%.
Spot gold was last trading at $4,744 per ounce, while silver was at about $80 per ounce.
Futures tied to the main U.S. benchmarks fell during early Asia hours as Wall Street begins a new month of trading, with traders keeping an eye on bitcoin after a weekend sell-off.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 143 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures dipped 0.6%, while Nasdaq-100 futures shed nearly 1%.
Bitcoin dropped below $80,000 for the first time since April, a sign investors were taking more risk off the table following the sharp declines in gold and silver.
Bitcoin last traded around $76,700.
Last Friday, U.S. stocks retreated as technology shares remained in a funk, even as investors largely approved of U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick of Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve.
Still, the S&P 500 squeaked out a January gain, despite Friday’s losses and volatile trading this month. The broad index fell 0.43% to finish at 6,939.03, its third straight down day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back 0.36%, to settle at 48,892.47. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite underperformed, dropping 0.94%, to end the day at 23,461.82. All three indexes fell more than 1% at session lows.
— CNBC’s Fred Imbert, Alex Harring, Lisa Kailai Han and Pia Singh contributed to this report.