Asian stocks mixed after Wall St falls, China retail slows

Oil prices retreated.Wall Streets benchmark SP 500 lost 0.9 per cent on Monday, giving back part of last weeks 5.9 per cent surge after lower US inflation encouraged hopes the Federal Reserve might ease off planned rate hikes to rein in surging prices.Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met during a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Indonesia.

Asian stocks gained Tuesday after Wall Street gave back some of last week's huge gains, the American and Chinese presidents met and China's consumer spending shrank in a sign its economy is weakening.

Shanghai, Tokyo and Hong Kong, which are the bulk of the region's market capitalisation, advanced. South Korea and Sydney declined. Oil prices retreated.

Wall Street's benchmark S&P 500 lost 0.9 per cent on Monday, giving back part of last week's 5.9 per cent surge after lower US inflation encouraged hopes the Federal Reserve might ease off planned rate hikes to rein in surging prices.

Presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping met during a summit of the Group of 20 major economies in Indonesia. That fed hopes for an easing of US-Chinese tension over security, trade, technology and human rights.

Monday's meeting was “surprisingly positive,” but the “feel-good factor that had been driving markets following the softer-than-expected October CPI release in the US evaporated,'' said Robert Carnell and Nicholas Mapa of ING in a report.

The Shanghai Composite Index gained 1.3 per cent to 3,123.26 after Chinese consumer spending contracted by 0.5 per cent in October over a year ago under pressure from increased anti-virus controls. Growth in factory activity also weakened.

The performance was worse than expected by forecaster who say Chinese economic activity will cool as interest rate hikes by global central banks depress demand for exports.

The Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 3.2 per cent to 18,179.34 and the Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 0.1 per cent to 28,002.40.

Seoul's Kospi sank less than 0.1 per cent to 2,472.93 and Sydney's S&P-ASX 200 shed less than 0.1 per cent to 7,141.60.

India's Sensex opened down 0.2 per cent at 61,497.16. New Zealand, Singapore and Bangkok gained while Indonesia was lower.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 declined to 3,957.25. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.6 per cent to 33,536.70. The Nasdaq composite fell 1.1 per cent to 11,196.22.

Investors worry that this year's repeated interest rate increases to cool inflation that is near multi-decade highs might tip the global economy into recession.

Traders expected the Fed to raise its benchmark lending rate again at its December but by a smaller margin of one-half percentage point after four hikes of 0.75 percentage points.

Fed officials say rates might have to stay elevated for an extended time to cool prices.

The government is due to report US wholesale inflation on Tuesday. Economists say it likely slowed to 8.3 per cent from September's 8.5 per cent.

On Wednesday, the US government gives an update on retail spending. Economists say growth likely revived to 0.9 per cent in October from the previous month's flat performance.

In energy markets, benchmark US crude lost 79 cents to USD 85.08 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract fell USD 3.09 to USD 85.87 on Monday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, shed 54 cents to USD 92.60 per barrel in London. It fell USD 2.85 the previous session to USD 93.14.

The dollar rose to 140.30 yen from Monday's 139.92 yen. The euro fell to USD 1.0332 from USD 1.0353.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)