Stocks in Asia traded lower on Monday as traders were awaiting inflation data this week to gauge the impact of rising oil prices in September.
Singapore and Australia will announce inflation data for September this week, while South Korea will report its third-quarter gross domestic product. Japan will also release Tokyo’s inflation numbers on Friday.
Thailand will report its trade data on Thursday.
In the morning session on Monday, Japan’s Nikkei fell 0.81% to 31,007.12 points, Shanghai SSEC dropped 0.94% to 2,955.11 points, Australia’s ASX200 decreased 0.93% to 6,836.40 points and Korea’s Kospi dipped 0.37% to 2,366.33 points.
Thailand and Hong Kong’s stock markets were closed on Monday.
The US stock market closed lower on Friday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 286.89 points or 0.86% to 33,127.28 points. Meanwhile, S&P 500 dropped 53.84 points or 1.26% to 4,224.16 points and Nasdaq Composite decreased 202.37 points or 1.53% to 12,983.81 points.
Last week, Japan’s September key inflation indicator, the core inflation, was published at 2.8% YoY which is slightly higher than the forecast of 2.7% and under 3% for the first time in 2023. Still, it’s higher than the general target of 2% as the market speculated that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) would try to end its ultra-loosen monetary policy or the negative interest rate soon.
Core consumer price index (CPI) that excluded the volatile foods price from its calculation, slowed down from 3.1% in August to a 13-month low. Meanwhile, the core-core consumer price index, which excludes food and energy prices, that BoJ monitored closely, rose by 4.2% YoY but slightly slowed down from 4.3% in the previous month of August.
The international benchmark Brent crude fell $0.82 or 0.89% a barrel to $91.34 a barrel and U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude dropped $0.35 or 0.39% a barrel to $89.02 a barrel.
