Asian Stocks Mixed, Follow Rise in U.S. Equities

By Zhang Mengying

Investing.com – Asia-Pacific stocks were mixed on Friday morning after U.S. equities rose on earnings. But a decline in Hong Kong and hesitant performance in China hampered Chinese equities.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.53% by 10:58 PM ET (2:58 AM GMT).

South Korea’s KOSPI jumped 0.68%.

In Australia, the ASX 200 rose 0.91%.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 1.41%.

China’s Shanghai Composite was down 0.57% while the Shenzhen Component was down 0.59%

U.S. equities climbed Friday on positive earnings from Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), and expectations of loosening monetary tightening from the U.S. Federal Reserve.

With that, Nasdaq 100 added 0.92%.

Treasuries trimmed a rally that’s left the 10-year yield close to the lowest level since April.

The U.S. Federal Reserve Wednesday raised interest rates by 75 basis points to 2.25-2.5% as markets expected.

“At some point, the Fed will pivot policy and that should be better for risk markets, but in the meantime, they’re so bent on quelling inflation that we prefer not to buy the dip here,”  BlackRock Inc's head of APAC iShares Investment Strategy Thomas Taw told Bloomberg.

“Market pricing is overdone and the terminal rate should move closer to 3.5%-3.75% as inflation remains too high amid strong labor market and wage trends," Priya Misra and Gennadiy Goldberg, strategists at TD Securities, wrote in a note.

On the data front, U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) released on Thursday fell at a 0.9% annual rate in the second quarter.

Elsewhere, US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping plan to have an in-person meeting, which would be the first face-to-face one between the men since Biden became president.