Asian markets edged up Monday as weak macroeconomic data bumped against chatter about the launch of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong trading link.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 recovered from early declines to trade up 0.1% while the Nikkei Stock Average was flat. South Korean stock markets are closed for a holiday. The Shanghai Composite was 1.7% higher, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 0.5%.
The Shanghai market surged after China’s securities regulator said Friday it established a special team to prepare for the launch of Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect in 2016.
Stocks of Japanese exporters opened lower due to a stronger yen but later recovered as the dollar edged higher. Canon Inc. was flat after being initially down 0.6%, with Toyota Motor Corp. recovering to trade nearly unchanged from an earlier decline of 0.3%.
Japan’s gross domestic product for the April-June quarter expanded at an annualized 0.2%, missing expectations of a 0.7% rise. Meanwhile, April-June exports fell 5.9% in real, annualized terms after a modest 0.4% rise in the previous quarter, suggesting a global slowdown was hitting demand in Japan’s export markets.
“Today’s narrow miss could have been a lot worse,” said Timothy Graf, head of macro strategy at State Street Global Markets EMEA. Markets will now focus on whether the Bank of Japan will ease policy later this year, he said.Elsewhere in the region, industrial production in China rose 6.0% in July from a year earlier, slower than the 6.2% growth recorded in June. Investment in factories, buildings and other fixed assets in nonrural areas rose 8.1% on the year in January-July, decelerating from the 9% increase in the first six months of the year and lower than the 8.9% predicted by economists.
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