Hong Kong stocks tumble 2% dragged by property and tech; Asia markets mixed

The Reserve Bank of Australia was considering whether to hold rates steady, or raise by 25 basis points in its July meeting, minutes have revealed.

The central bank eventually decided to leave rates unchanged, saying that monetary policy was “clearly restrictive” at the prevailing cash rate of 4.1% and that mortgage interest payments were around a record high in May.

It also acknowledged that inflation has been declining, and would help mitigate the risk of a rise in medium-term inflation expectations.

The bank said the risk that output growth could slow more than expected if rates were raised, noting there was “considerable uncertainty” around household consumption.

Read more here.

— Lim Hui Jie

Chinese property developer China Evergrande Group posted steep losses in its long overdue results for 2021 and 2022.

The company saw a total net loss of 686.2 billion yuan ($95.68 billion) for 2021, and a 125.8 billion total net loss in 2022.

For 2022, the majority of the losses were due to losses related to the return of lands, impairment losses on financial assets, and other non-operating losses, which amounted to 69.37 billion yuan.

Evergrande’s total liabilities amounted to 2.35 trillion yuan last year, 23% higher compared to 2020, while its total assets stood at 1.8 trillion yuan, 20% lower compared to two years ago.

— Lim Hui Jie

After a more-than 80% jump in bitcoin‘s price in the first half of 2023, crypto market watchers tell CNBC Pro how they expect the cryptocurrency to perform in the latter half of the year.

Carol Alexander, professor of finance at Sussex University, Standard Charterd’s Geoff Kendrick, and Antoni Trenchev, CEO of crypto lending firm Nexo reveal their forecasts.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ryan Browne

European semiconductor stocks are set to face a “tricky quarter” thanks to a “volatile earnings season” starting this week, according to Barclays.

The investment bank laid out key earnings expectations for ASML, Nokia, STMicro and Infineon, and its medium-term outlook for the chip stocks.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Ganesh Rao

The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF added 1.2% Monday, hitting a new 52-week high.

The ETF, which has targeted exposure to software, interactive media and related companies, has gained almost 42% in 2023. Meanwhile, the VanEck Semiconductor ETF also gained more than 1% as of Monday afternoon, amid a 56.3% year-to-date rally.

The S&P 500 is up a modest 0.3% Monday morning, but 43 constituents in the broad-market index jumped to new 52-week highs, including a handful hitting their highest levels in decades.

Booking Holdings jumped to a high of $2,938.38, reaching all-time highs dating back to the travel stock’s initial public offering in 1999.

Cintas popped to all-time highs dating back to its debut in 1983. The corporate uniform supplier touched a high of $503.70. Cintas posted a beat late last week, with fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of $3.33 per share on revenue of $2.28 billion.

Pest control giant Rollins touched a high of $44.78, an all-time high since it began trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1968.

–Darla Mercado, Chris Hayes

Details are starting to trickle out about the Nasdaq 100 rebalance, which will become effective on July 24.

According to Goldman Sachs, Nvidia and Microsoft are the stocks that will see the biggest downward adjustments as part of the rebalance, and Apple will be the largest stock in the group, but with a smaller weighting than it currently has.

Read more about the changes to the index and the potential impact on stocks at CNBC Pro.

— Jesse Pound

Manufacturing activity in the New York areas ground to a near-standstill in July, with nearly as many firms reporting expansion as contraction.

The New York Federal Reserve’s Empire State Manufacturing Survey dropped 6 points to a reading of 1.1, representing the difference between companies seeing growth against contraction. Wall Street had been looking for a reading of zero, according to Dow Jones.

New orders were little changed at 3.3, while shipments fell 8.6 points and inventories declined 4.8 points to a reading of -10.8. There was some good news on inflation, with both the prices paid and received indexes falling more than 5 points.

—Jeff Cox