HONG KONG — Asian shares were mostly lower on Monday as Wall Street neared the end of another winning week.
US futures were mixed and oil prices fell.
The release of weak Chinese credit data and news that the US government plans to raise tariffs on a range of Chinese exports weighed on sentiment.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 lost 0.4% to 38,068.88. The country’s economic growth figures for the first quarter will be announced on Thursday.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 0.5% to 19,052.14, helped by buying in technology stocks.
But the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.1% lower to 3,151.94 after Chinese inflation rates rose for a third straight month in April, while the producer price index, which measures the cost of factory goods, fell for a 19th month, reports said. the National Bureau of Statistics reported on Saturday.
New loans fell to 730 billion yuan ($100 billion) in April from 3.09 trillion yuan in March, and overall credit fell partly due to a lower number of government bonds issued. Officials said the data shows demand remains weak, while the real estate sector remains ailing.
There were also reports that the Biden administration planned to raise tariffs on electric vehicles, semiconductors, solar energy equipment and medical supplies imported from China, according to people familiar with the plan. In particular, rates for electric vehicles could quadruple from 25% to 100%.
These tariffs, which were reportedly announced Tuesday, led to sales from some automakers. Shares of Chinese EV maker BYD fell 0.6% and NIO fell 2%.
South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.5% to 2,715.23 and Australia’s S&The P/ASX 200 lost 0.3% to 7,728.70.
Taiwan’s Taiex gained 0.6% after leading computer manufacturer TSMC reported that its April sales rose almost 60% from a year earlier. The Indian Sensex fell 0.9%.
On Friday the S&The P500 rose 0.2% to 5,222.68, capping a third straight winning week after a mostly miserable April. Initial profits shrank after a dispiriting report on US consumer confidence.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 39,512.84, and the Nasdaq composite fell 5.40 to 16,340.87.
The S&The P500 is within 0.6% of its record, helped by renewed hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates this year. A stream of stronger-than-expected earnings from major US companies has also helped support the market.
Gen Digital rose 15.3% after reporting better earnings for the first three months of 2024 than analysts expected. The cybersecurity company, whose brands include Norton and LifeLock, has also authorized a program to buy back up to $3 billion of its shares. It joined a growing list of companies announcing major such programs, boosting earnings per share for investors.
Novavax nearly doubled, shooting 98.7% higher after announcing a deal with Sanofi that could be worth more than $1.2 billion. The agreement includes a license to co-commercialize Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine globally, with limited exceptions. Novavax also reported a slightly smaller loss in the last quarter than analysts expected.
They helped offset an 11% decline for Akamai Technologies, which beat profit expectations but lagged on revenue. The cloud computing, security and content delivery company also made some financial predictions for the coming year that fell short of analyst expectations.
In the bond market, Treasury yields rose after the University of Michigan’s discouraging preliminary report.
It suggested that sentiment among U.S. consumers is weakening much more than economists expected, and that the decline was large enough to be “statistically significant and takes sentiment to the lowest in about six months,” said Joanne Hsu, director of the consumer research. .
Potentially even more disheartening, US consumers forecast inflation of 3.5% for the coming year, up from their forecast of 3.2% a month earlier. If such expectations continue to rise, there are concerns that this could lead to a vicious circle that worsens inflation.
It highlights how some companies have recently described increasing problems among their customers, especially among lower-income customers.
In energy trading, U.S. benchmark crude lost 20 cents to $78.06 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude, the international standard, was 26 cents lower at $82.53 a barrel.
In currency trading, the US dollar rose from 155.70 yen to 155.76 Japanese yen. The euro cost $1.0772, up from $1.0771.
