Stock market today: Asian shares mostly decline, as investors watch spending, inflation

TOKYO — Asian shares retreated on Monday as investors waited for updates on consumer spending and inflation in the US and other countries.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 fell 0.4% to 33,479.71 in morning trading, after the producer price index rose slightly higher than expected at 2.3% in October.

In China, industrial profits fell less than last year, to minus 7.8% in October.

“Although conditions have improved, this also indicates that recovery is slow. The series of economic data recently shows that the recovery momentum has also been intermittent,” said Yeap Jun Rong, market analyst at IG, in a commentary.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 1.0% to 17,382.28, while the Shanghai Composite lost 0.8% to 3,017.79.

The Australian S&The P/ASX 200 fell 0.4% to 7,009.50. South Korea’s Kospi lost 0.2% to 2,491.20.

Several central banks in the region are holding policy meetings this week, including the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Bank of Korea and Bank of Thailand. While analysts expect to keep a close eye on policy, attention remains relatively high given inflation concerns.

Wall Street finished mixed last week with a half-day trading session that capped a fourth consecutive winning week. The holiday shopping season kicked off with Black Friday, amid concerns that spending could slow under pressure from dwindling savings, rising credit card debt and inflation.

The S&The P 500 rose 0.1% to 4,559.34 on Friday, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.3% to 35,390.15. The Nasdaq composite fell 0.1% to 14,250.85 after gains in the health care and financial and energy sectors tempered losses in technology stocks.

Trading was muted when markets reopened Thursday after the Thanksgiving holiday. Gains in healthcare, financials, energy and other sectors helped temper losses in technology and communications services stocks.

Chipmaker Nvidia and Google parent company Alphabet were among the biggest decliners, losing 1.9% and 1.3% respectively. Among the big winners in the S&P500 were CF Industries, which rose 2.6%, and Best Buy, which closed 2.2% higher.

The latest weekly gains in the major stock indexes reflect a turnaround in market sentiment in November after a three-month decline. Traders have become cautiously optimistic that inflation has cooled enough for the Federal Reserve to finally finish its market-busting rate hikes.

The Fed will get another major update this week when the government releases its October report on a key inflation measure tracked by the central bank.

In other trading early Monday, the yield on the 10-year Treasury bond, which influences interest rates on mortgages and other loans, rose to 4.50% from 4.47%.

Benchmark U.S. crude fell 66 cents to $74.88 barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Friday, oil prices fell $1.56 to $75.54 per barrel.

Brent crude, the international standard, fell 62 cents to $79.86 a barrel.

The US dollar fell from 149.53 yen to 148.96 Japanese yen. The euro was at $1.0945, little changed from $1.0944.

___

Yuri Kageyama is on X, formerly Twitter https://twitter.com/yurikageyama