Aerial view of the Shanghai financial district skyscrapers and the Huangpu river at sunset.
Tobiasjo | E+ | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets opened lower Monday, after U.S. jobs report on Friday dampened investors’ hopes for early interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.84% lower. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures last traded at 18,971, lower than the HSI’s Friday close of 19,064.29.
Japan markets are closed for a holiday. South Korea’s Kospi slipped 0.4% in its first hour of trade, while the Kosdaq dipped 0.3%.
China is slated to release its December trade data later in the day, while India is expected to report its inflation numbers.
Investors in Asia will continue to keep an eye on Chinese bond yields after the country’s central bank suspended purchases of government bonds last Friday. China’s 10-year bond yield plunged to a record low this month.
The country’s onshore yuan hit a 16-month low against the dollar last week, while the offshore yuan has been on a multi-month slide since last September. China’s benchmark index, CSI 300, closed at its lowest level since September 2024 on Friday.
Looking to the rest of this week, the Bank of Korea is expected to meet this Thursday, and Australia is slated to post its unemployment rate for December on the same day. China will be posting its GDP for the fourth quarter of 2024 on Friday, alongside retail sales and industrial output data.
U.S. stocks dropped Friday after a hot jobs report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 696.75 points, or 1.63%, to close at 41,938.45. The S&P 500 slid 1.54% to 5,827.04, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.63% to 19,161.63. Friday’s losses pushed the major benchmarks into the red for 2025.
U.S. payrolls grew by 256,000 in December, while economists polled by Dow Jones expected to see an increase of 155,000. The unemployment rate, which was projected to remain at 4.2%, fell to 4.1% during the month. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note spiked to its highest level since late 2023 after the report.
—CNBC’s Pia Singh and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.
