Asian Shares Mostly Higher With Nikkei Marking Fresh Gains, Shanghai Down
Investing.com - Asian shares gained on Monday with investors shrugging of reports of clashes between Iraqi government troops and Kurdish regional Government paramilitary forces in the Kirkuk region that could turn into a wider regional conflict as Turkey and Iran also oppose any move to independence by the Kurds in Iraq.
Teh focus was on weaker than expected inflation in the U.S. reported last week that raised the prospect the Fed my go slower than forecast on rate hike in 2018.
Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.65%. SoftBank Group rose 1.76%. The spike in share price came after news that T-Mobile and SoftBank-controlled Sprint intended to announce a merger, according to Reuters. That followed a report from Nikkei Asian Review during the weekend that Softbank had "reached a broad agreement" about the deal.
Over in South Korea, Samsung Electronics (KS:005930) gained 0.04% after announcing Friday it was expecting record profit for the third quarter. Other tech stocks in the market were mixed: LG Electronics rose 1.36% and Samsung SDI fell 5.32%.
In Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.65%. In Greater China, the Shanghai Composite dipped 0.11% and the Hang Seng index rose 0.84%. China reported September prices data gained 0.5%, compared to an expected 0.4% rise sen on on month and up 1.6% on year as expected, while PPI jumped 6.9%, compared to an expected 6.3% gain.
Last week, U.S. stocks rounded off the trading week in record setting style as investor optimism for a solid third-quarter earnings season sparked a broad based rally in equities.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher at 22,872. The S&P 500 closed 0.09% higher while the Nasdaq Composite closed at 6605.80, up 0.22%.
Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) (NYSE:BAC) set the tone of the day, revealing better-than-expected performance on both the top and bottom lines despite a slowdown in its fixed-income trading business.
In the tech sector, Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) (NASDAQ:NFLX) was one of the largest gainers as investors piled into its shares ahead of the streaming giant’s earnings report due Monday amid expectations the company will show bullish growth for the third quarter.
"People are generally expecting a strong earnings season," said Tom Martin, senior portfolio manager at Globalt.
On the economic front, investors digested a mixed economic reports on inflation and retail sales.
The Labor Department said on Friday its Consumer Price Index rose 0.5% last month after advancing 0.4% in August. That missed economists forecast of a 0.6% rise.
Meanwhile, retail sales rose 1.6%, their biggest gain since 2015, the Commerce Department said on Friday. Economists had expected a 1.7% increase.
The slowdown in inflation drew concerns from analysts who questioned the Fed’s plan to hike rates in December.
“We are increasingly concerned that the FOMC’s insistence on pushing toward a December rate hike risks a policy-error,” wrote Ian Lyngen, head of U.S. rates strategy at BMO Capital Markets.
Meanwhile, renewed geopolitical uncertainty capped upside momentum as North Korea revived an earlier threat to strike Guam following ongoing U.S-South Korea military drills.
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