China trade, Singapore GDP Taylor Swift boost

Pelican Press · April 12

China trade, Singapore GDP Taylor Swift boost

An aerial view of a container ship leaving the dockyard in Qingdao in east China’s Shandong province.

Future Publishing | Future Publishing | Getty Images

Asia-Pacific markets were mixed Friday after an inflation-fueled selloff in the previous session, with investor assessing economic data from Singapore and South Korea while awaiting China trade numbers.

China’s trade data for March will be released later in the day, with exports forecast to fall 2.3% year on year by economists polled by Reuters. This follows a weaker-than-expected rise in the country’s inflation on Thursday.

Singapore’s first-quarter ****** domestic product climbed 2.7% year on year, advance estimates showed, faster than the 2.2% growth recorded in the last quarter of 2023.

The city-state’s central bank held its monetary policy steady, leaving the width and level of its policy band unchanged. In contrast to other countries, Singapore uses exchange rate settings for its monetary policy, instead of a benchmark interest rate.

South Korea’s March unemployment rate rose to 2.8%, while investors awaited the Bank of Korea’s rate decision.

The country’s benchmark Kospi index was down 0.38%, but the small-cap Kosdaq gained 0.62%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 climbed 0.51%, while the broad-based Topix rose 0.53%.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 slipped 0.25%.

However, futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 17,014, pointing to a weaker open compared to the HSI’s close of 17,095.03.

Overnight in the U.S., tech shares pulled both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite into positive territory, with both indexes gaining 0.74% and 1.68%, respectively.

On the other hand, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 2.43 points, or 0.01%.

Nvidia jumped 4.1%, while