The sails of the Opera House are illuminated with projections on the opening night of Vivid Sydney 2023 in Sydney, Australia, on Friday, May 26, 2023.
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Asia-Pacific markets mostly rose early Monday ahead of a slew of GDP and inflation numbers due out from the region this week.
Investors will also be watching the U.S. Federal Reserve’s first rate decision of 2024, set to be released Wednesday stateside.
This week’s major events will be China’s factory activity figures for January as well as Australia’s fourth-quarter inflation figures on Wednesday. This will be last set of key data before the Reserve Bank of Australia’s meeting on Feb. 5.
On Wednesday, Taiwan and Hong Kong will also release their fourth-quarter GDP numbers.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 traded close to the flatline.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rebounded from Friday’s losses and rose 0.46%, while the broad based Topix climbed nearly 1%.
South Korea’s Kospi was up 0.47%, and the small-cap Kosdaq slipped 0.16%.
Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 16,084, pointing to a stronger open compared with the HSI’s close of 15,952.23
On Friday in the U.S., all three major indexes ended mixed, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite declining 0.07% and 0.36%, snapping six-day winning streaks. The fall also marked a retreat for the S&P 500 from all-time closing highs.
The U.S. core personal consumption expenditures price index grew 0.2% in December compared with the previous month, and 2.9% on a yearly basis. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for respective increases of 0.2% and 3%.
Friday’s PCE print came a day after gross domestic product data revealed higher-than-expected economic growth in the fourth quarter, bolstering investors’ hopes that the economy has avoided a deep recession.
— CNBC’s Pia Singh and Alex Harring contributed to this report.