Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor Kazuo Ueda delivers a speech at a press conference held at the Bank of Japan’s headquarters in Tokyo, Japan
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Asia-Pacific markets fell on Thursday as investors focused on the Bank of Japan’s interest rate decision and key business activity data from China.
Economists polled by Reuters expect the Bank of Japan to keep interest rates at 0.25%, but the statement will be parsed for any clues on the timing of the next rate hike.
In China, the National Bureau of Statistics will release China’s official Purchasing Managers Index for September. The manufacturing PMI is expected to be 49.9, with the contraction slowing down from 49.8 last month.
Still, this would be the sixth straight month of contraction in the country’s manufacturing sector.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 Index It fell 0.33%, while the broad-based Topix fell 0.36%.
Korean Cospi It fell 1.33%, leading Asian stocks lower, while the small-cap Kosdaq index fell 1.25%. Investors will focus on heavyweight Samsung Electronics’ third-quarter earnings, expected to be released later on Thursday.
Australian S&P/ASX 200 Index It opened the day down 0.2%.
However, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index futures were quoted at 20,511 points, opening stronger compared to the Hang Seng Index’s closing point of 20,380.64 points.
Overnight, U.S. stocks fell as investors digested a slew of earnings reports and looked forward to more performance from big technology companies.
Alphabet’s cloud business posted strong quarterly revenue growth, beating analysts’ expectations. Shares rose nearly 3%. However, chipmaker AMD’s fourth-quarter revenue guidance failed to impress investors, sending its shares down more than 10%.
Tech giants Apple and Amazon will go public on Thursday, according to results from Meta Platforms and Microsoft.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq fell 0.56% after rising to a new record high earlier. The S&P 500 fell 0.33% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.22% to close at 42,141.54 points.
—CNBC’s Hakyung Kim and Pia Singh contributed to this report.
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