06/17/2024 – 5:45
By Sergio Caldas*
São Paulo, 06/17/2024 – Asian stock markets closed mostly lower this Monday, while investors evaluated a series of relevant Chinese economic data.
In mainland China, the Shanghai index fell 0.55% to 3,015.89 points, while the less comprehensive Shenzhen Composite was broadly flat, up a marginal 0.05% to 1,690.43.
In the annual comparison of May, Chinese industrial production rose 5.6% and retail sales increased 3.7%, less than expected in both cases. Property sales in the world’s second largest economy remain weak, despite a series of recent measures to encourage the sector: between January and May, there was a 30.5% drop.
Furthermore, the PBoC – as the Chinese Central Bank is known – decided to leave the interest rate on its medium-term loan line unchanged at 2.5%.
Elsewhere in Asia, the Japanese Nikkei suffered a significant drop of 1.83% in Tokyo, to 38,102.44 points, pressured by shares and developers, amid uncertainty about the outlook for Bank of Japan (BoJ) policy, while the Hang Seng had a slight loss of 0.03% in Hong Kong, at 17,936.12 points, the South Korean Kospi fell 0.52% in Seoul, at 2,744.10 points, and the Taiex registered a slight loss of 0.04 %, at 22,496.53 points, after reaching successive historic highs last week.
In Oceania, the Australian stock market was in the red today, under the weight of stocks linked to commodities. The S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.31% in Sydney, to 7,700.30 points.
Contact: [email protected]
*With information from Dow Jones Newswires
#Asian #stock #markets #close #Chinese #data #falls #short #expectations