China’s largest policy meeting in six years opens this week.
Wang Yukun | Moment | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were mixed on Tuesday as dovish comments from Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell pushed Wall Street higher overnight.
Powell said the Fed will not wait until inflation reaches 2% before cutting interest rates because the Fed’s policy has a “long and variable lag.” So “if you wait until inflation gets all the way down to 2%, you’ve probably waited too long,” he said.
His comments coupled with expectations that a failed assassination attempt on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would bring huge gains to the Republican Party and more fiscally friendly policies pushed the Dow Jones Industrial Average to a new high.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index Led by consumer stocks, the CSI 300 fell 1.4%, while the CSI 300 fell 0.11%.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 Index Trading will resume after public holidays. Nikkei 225 Index rose 0.36%, and the Topix rose 0.70%.
Japanese stocks TDK Co., Ltd.The Nikkei’s sixth-largest stock by weight rose more than 4%.
Korean Cospi rose 0.12%, while the KOSDAQ index did the opposite, falling 1.56%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.17%, retreating from Monday’s all-time closing high.
After China’s GDP data was weaker than expected, Goldman Sachs lowered its forecast for China’s full-year gross domestic product (GDP) from 5% to 4.9%, while JP Morgan lowered its forecast from 5.2% to 4.7%.
“This highlights the need for the government to step up policy support in the second half of the year if it wants to ensure growth of around 5% for the whole year,” Shan Hui, chief China economist at Goldman Sachs, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Tuesday, explaining weak domestic demand. Still a big problem.
Investors continue to pay attention to the progress of China’s Third Plenary Session, where high local government debt levels and the promotion of advanced manufacturing will be on the agenda.
“This is a potential window for leadership to get more clues about their views on future policy trajectories,” she said.
In addition, Singaporean state investor Temasek announced plans to invest US$10 billion in India within three years for the country’s financial services and healthcare industries. As of March, the company had 7% investments in the South Asian country.
Temasek, which has 19% of its investments in China, said it continued to take a cautious stance due to trade tensions.
Overnight, the US blue-chip Dow Jones Index rose 0.53% to close at a record 40,211.72 points. The S&P 500 Index rose 0.28% to close at 5,631.22 points; the Nasdaq Index rose 0.4% to close at 18,472.57 points.
—CNBC’s Alex Harring and Yun Li contributed to this report.
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