Aerial view of Shanghai Financial District skyscrapers and Huangpu River at sunset.
Tobias She | Electronic+ | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets opened lower on Monday after a U.S. jobs report on Friday dampened investor hopes for an early interest rate cut by the Federal Reserve.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index fell 0.84%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index futures were last at 18,971 points, lower than the Hang Seng Index’s closing point of 19,064.29 points on Friday.
Japanese markets were closed for a holiday. Korean Cospi It fell 0.4% in the first hour of trading, with the Kosdaq down 0.3%.
China is due to release December trade data later in the day, while India is expected to report its inflation data.
Asian investors will continue to focus on Chinese bond yields after China’s central bank suspended government bond purchases on Friday. China’s 10-year government bond yield fell to a record low this month.
Last week, the onshore yuan hit a 16-month low against the U.S. dollar, while the offshore yuan has continued to slide for months since September last year. China’s benchmark CSI 300 closed at its lowest level since September 2024 on Friday.
Looking ahead to the rest of the week, South Korea’s central bank is expected to hold a meeting on Thursday, while Australia is expected to release its December unemployment rate on the same day. China will release fourth-quarter 2024 GDP, retail sales and industrial output data on Friday.
U.S. stocks fell on Friday after a hot jobs report.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 696.75 points, or 1.63%, to close at 41,938.45 points. The S&P 500 fell 1.54% to 5,827.04 points; the Nasdaq fell 1.63% to 19,161.63 points. Friday’s losses put the major benchmark index into the red through 2025.
U.S. employment rose by 256,000 in December, while economists polled by Dow Jones expected a gain of 155,000. The unemployment rate is expected to remain at 4.2%, falling to 4.1% this month. Following the report, the 10-year Treasury yield surged to its highest level since late 2023.
—CNBC’s Pia Singh and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.
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