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Asian stocks were mixed on Tuesday, with Hong Kong and Shanghai leading losses ahead of a decision on interest rates by the Federal Reserve this week.
US futures fell and oil prices rose slightly.
Shares of real estate developer China Evergrande Group, the world's most indebted real estate company with liabilities of more than $300 billion, remained suspended from trading after a Hong Kong court ordered the company to be liquidated due to insolvency.
But shares of China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group rose 7% as trading resumed after also being suspended on Monday. Evergrande Property Services fell 1.3%.
Other property companies led the decline in Hong Kong, where the benchmark Hang Seng index fell 2.4% to 15,694.69. Country Garden fell 3.3% and Sunac China Holdings fell 7.1%. Guangzhou R&F Properties fell 5.5%.
Technology companies also fell: food supplier Meituan fell 2.8% and e-commerce giant Alibaba fell 1.9%.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.8% to 2,830.53.
Chinese regulators have taken action to shore up markets, which have been among the world's worst this year, as they worry not only about the struggling real estate industry but also about slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy.
“Skepticism about the Equity Crash Protection Plan remains,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary. “Measures similar to putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg may temporarily boost stock prices, but do little to stabilize earnings or stimulate growth.”
Elsewhere in Asia, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo rose 0.1% to 36,065.68 and the Kospi in South Korea fell 0.1% to 2,503.00. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.3% to 7,600.20.
Bangkok's SET was almost unchanged, while India's Sensex lost 0.5%.
U.S. stocks rose on Monday at the start of a week in which Wall Street's most influential stocks could show whether the high expectations that have been generated for them are justified.
The S&P 500 gained 0.8% to set another record at 4,927.93. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6% to 38,333.45 and the Nasdaq Composite jumped 1.1% to 15,628.04.
Big Tech stocks, the main reason the S&P 500 has risen more than 35% to a record in two fall days, will play a big role in earnings reports this week. These include Apple, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta Platforms and Microsoft.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve will make its next decision on what to do with interest rates. Traders expect it to remain firm but hope it will cut rates at its next meeting in March. That would be the first downward move since the Fed began sharply raising interest rates two years ago to bring inflation under control.
A wave of encouraging data has Wall Street believing its dream scenario can come true: The Fed will successfully overcome high inflation and deliver the rate cuts investors want while the economy pulls through without falling into a recession, the latter year seemed inevitable.
On Friday, the US government will release the latest monthly update on the labor market. Economists expect the number of new hires to continue to increase, but at a slower pace. That's exactly what the Fed wants to see, because too much growth could mean upward pressure on inflation.
So far this reporting season, companies have not seen their share prices rise as sharply as usual after beating analysts' forecasts.
Archer Daniels Midland rose 5.6%, the biggest gain in the S&P 500, to recoup part of its sharp loss from last week after the company placed its chief financial officer on leave and said it was investigating some of its accounting practices.
On Wall Street's losing side, iRobot fell 8.8% after the company agreed to abandon its purchase by Amazon following a review by antitrust regulators.
In other trading on Tuesday, U.S. benchmark crude oil rose 16 cents to $76.95 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices fell $1.23 to $76.78 a barrel on Monday.
A barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 9 cents to $81.92 a barrel.
The US dollar fell to 147.18 yen from 147.50 yen. The euro slipped from $1.0835 to $1.0822.
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