Asian stocks tumbled on Monday, weighed by a Wall Street selloff and fresh Chinese property worries and as investors reined in risk-taking at the start of a week loaded with big Central bank decisions and economic data.
Morgan Stanley Capital International’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan 1.2%, led by a drop of as much as 2.7% in South Korean shares, one of the world’s best-performing markets this year.
“The risk-off tone across Asia looks more like a spillover from last Friday’s selloff in United States (US) momentum and tech than a region-specific catalyst,” said Marc Velan, head of investments at Lucerne Asset Management in Singapore.
“The unwind in the AI-capex trade weighed on global risk appetite, and in thin year-end liquidity those moves tend to travel quickly across regions.”
Standard & Poor’s 500 e-mini futures rebounded 0.3%, while the yield on the US 10-year Treasury bond was last down 2.2 basis points at 4.1743% as investors awaited a string of economic data releases and a slew of decisions from central banks.
Against the Chinese yuan trading offshore , the US Dollar slipped 0.1% to 7.0486 yuan, hovering around its strongest level in more than a year, after factory output and retail sales data slowed further in November.
Official data showed on Monday that new home prices extended a decline in November, indicating that a recovery in demand remains elusive despite the government vowing to stabilise the sector.
–Reuters–
