Markets steady ahead of China GDP released later

USA stock markets were closed for a public holiday, leaving trade lighter in Europe. A weakening of China’s currency at the start of the year had spooked investors, who are concerned about the impact of a weaker yuan on China’s trading partners.

Some gold stocks saw early gains with shares of Newcrest up 0.63%.

He added: “The continued weakness in commodity prices, particularly in the oil and gas sector continues to spook world markets and now that Iran has been given the green light to come in from the cold, it is likely to be hard to see where the next rebound in oil prices is likely to come from, raising concerns about further bankruptcy losses across the sector, if as predicted prices fall further towards $20 a barrel”.

For the week, the Dow lost 2.2 percent, as did the S&P 500, while the Nasdaq dropped 3.3 percent.

The Japanese telecommunications giant is the majority stakeholder in Sprint Corp, which shed 10 percent of its share price in Friday’s sell-off on Wall Street. Capacity utilization rate and industrial rate also disappointed at 76.5 percent and -0.4 percent respectively.

Global investors have pulled money out of bond and stock funds in emerging markets this year, BNP Paribas SA said in research notes to clients, citing data published by EPFR Global.

Economists still expect further weakening for China’s economy, with Goldman Sachs estimating growth of 5.8% in this first quarter.

Following that data, the Atlanta Federal Reserve’s closely-watched GDPNow forecast model showed the USA economy is on track to grow 0.6 percent in the fourth quarter, slowing sharply from 2.0 percent growth in the third quarter.

Among the most actively traded stocks on Hong Kong’s main board were CCT Land, unchanged at HK$0.03; Bank Of China, down 1.6 per cent to HK$2.99; and Jun Yang Financial Holdings, down 7.7 per cent to HK$0.04. The contract fell $1.78 on Friday to $29.42 a barrel.

The Chinese market was given some support by the People’s Bank of China’s decision to increase the yuan’s rate against the USA dollar.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index added 0.8 per cent, to 19,386.75 points while the China Enterprises Index gained 1.5 per cent, to 8,260.05.

A 2.7 per cent fall in the Brent oil benchmark to $US28.18 hurt the region’s energy shares. The offshore Chinese yuan was last up 0.4 per cent, after the central bank guided its onshore counterpart stronger earlier Monday.

CURRENCIES: The dollar rose to 117.15 yen from 117.00 yen on Friday.

Stock markets across Asia ended firmly in the red after falling to their lowest levels since late 2011. The kiwi and Australia’s dollar slipped at least 0.2 percent, while the yen and the euro held gains as the worst start to a year on record for equities and oil’s tumble to a 12- year low fueled demand for safer assets.