Asia-Pacific markets slipped Thursday as investors look to the Bank of Japan’s rate decision, as well as key business activity figures from China.
The BOJ held its benchmark policy rate at 0.25%, unchanged from the previous meeting. The bank released a two-line statement simply stating the decision, with no clues on the timing of its next rate hike.
In China, the country’s manufacturing purchasing managers index flipped into expansion territory for the first time since April, with the National Bureau of Statistics revealing the manufacturing PMI came in at 50.1.
This beat forecasts from a Reuters poll of economists, who expected the manufacturing PMI to come in at 49.9, a softer contraction than the 49.8 the month before.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was 0.5% lower after the BOJ decision, closing at 39,081.25 and snapping a three-day winning streak. The broad based Topix slipped 0.3%, also ending three straight days of gains and finishing at 2,695.51.
South Korea’s Kospi was 1.45% lower at 2,556.15, leading losses in Asia and hitting its lowest level since Sept. 11, but the small cap Kosdaq was up 0.66%, closing at 743.06.
Investors are assessing heavyweight Samsung Electronics’ third-quarter earnings, which revealed a lower profit than the previous quarter. Most notably, Samsung’s semiconductor unit reported third-quarter operating profit of 3.86 trillion won (about $2.8 billion), down 40% from the previous quarter.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 shed 0.25%, closing at 8,160 and hitting its lowest level since Oct. 4.
In contrast, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index climbed 0.35%, but mainland China’s CSI 300 lost 0.17%, reversing earlier gains.
Overnight in the U.S., stocks slipped as investors digested a deluge of earnings reports and looked toward more results from megacap technology companies.
Alphabet exceeded analysts’ expectations as the company saw strong quarterly revenue growth from its cloud business. Shares jumped almost 3%. However, Shares of chipmaker AMD slid more than 10% as its fourth-quarter revenue guidance failed to impress investors.
Tech titans Apple and Amazon are due Thursday, following results from Meta Platforms and Microsoft.
The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite declined 0.56% after earlier rising to a fresh record high. The S&P 500 slid 0.33%, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.22%, to close at 42,141.54.
