Hong Kong stocks fall to one-month low, China down on strong US jobs data
Hong Kong stocks hit a month low post-weekend break due to strong U.S. employment data impacting Fed rate cut expectations. Mainland China stocks also dropped, affected by consumer sector and non-ferrous metal industry downturns.
On Tuesday, experienced their lowest point in over a month following a long weekend break. This decline was influenced by unexpectedly strong U.S. employment data, which led to a significant reduction in expectations for Federal Reserve interest rate cuts this year. Additionally, were negatively impacted by downturns in the consumer sector and non-ferrous metal industry.Investors now keenly awaited China's May credit lending data this week to gauge the health of the broad economy.
A Reuters poll suggested that China's new yuan loans likely rebounded in May from April as the central bank told lenders to quicken bank lending to support the economy.
At the midday break, the was down 1.1% at 3,017.73 points.
China's blue-chip CSI300 index was down 1.21%, with the consumer staples sector down 2.33% and the non-ferrous metal industry losing 3.34%.
Losses in the non-ferrous metal industry shares came after the London copper price hit its lowest level in more than five weeks on Monday, amid a firm dollar and constraints in physical demand.
Chinese H-shares listed in Hong Kong fell 1.68% to 6,400.93 points. The benchmark was down 1.67% at 18,059.96 points, the lowest intraday level since May 2.
The smaller Shenzhen index was down 0.32%, the start-up board ChiNext Composite index was weaker by 0.39% and Shanghai's tech-focused STAR50 index was up 1.52%.
Around the region, MSCI's Asia ex-Japan stock index was weaker by 0.62% while Japan's Nikkei index was up 0.25%.
The yuan was quoted at 7.253 per U.S. dollar, 0.07% weaker than the previous close of 7.248.
Source: Stocks-Markets-Economic Times
