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Asian Shares Mixed With Aussie Jobs In Surprise Gain, China Data Disappoints

Published 14/12/2017, 03:05 pm
Updated 14/12/2017, 03:15 pm
© Reuters.  Asian shares mixed

© Reuters. Asian shares mixed

Investing.com - Asian shares were mixed on Thursday with jobs data in Australia not providing a major lift to Sydney and Chinese data on retail sales and industrial output disappointing expectations slightly.

Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 0.03%, while the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.09%. Toyota and Panasonic on Wednesday announced an agreement to begin a study to advance the development of automotive batteries. The move comes as other Japanese automakers, such as Nissan and Honda, have warmed to the prospects of electric vehicles. Toyota edged up by 0.17% and Panasonic rose 2.29%.

Shares of Rakuten lost 2.89% after Nikkei reported the e-commerce company intends to enter the mobile carrier industry, currently dominated by SoftBank Group, NTT Docomo and KDDI. Rakuten responded that it was still mulling over a potential entry and would announce information "in a timely and appropriate manner" if necessary.

Australia reported employment change data for November showed job jumped by 61,600 with a gain of 19,200 jobs expected and under a steady unemployment rate of 5.4% and participation rate of 65.5%, higher than the 65.1% seen.

In Greater China, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.20% and the Hang Seng index eased 0.10%. China reported industrial production for November came in at a gain of 6.1%, compared with a 6.2% rise seen followed by retail sales which rose 10.2%, compared to a 10.3% rise expected and fixed asset investment came in up 7.2% as seen.

Overnight, Wall Street raced to record highs on Wednesday buoyed by growing expectations that an agreement on final tax bill would reach President Donald Trump before year-end, while bullish expectations from the Federal Reserve on future growth lifted sentiment.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed higher at 24,585.43. The S&P 500 closed 0.05% lower, while the Nasdaq Composite closed at 6875.80, up 0.20%.

The Federal Reserve approved its third rate hike of 2017, and forecasts further rate hikes despite growing concerns over the slow pace of inflation.

Fed officials also expressed optimism in the economy, hiking their projection for economic growth in 2017 to 2.5%, while growth in 2018 was expected to rise to 2.5%, a 0.4% increase from the Fed’s September projections.

The report raised investor expectations for ongoing bullish economic growth, lifting sentiment on risker assets like equities.

Also supporting an uptick in US stocks were comments from Trump, who said he hopes to sign the tax bill “in a very short period of time”, and stressed that it was “very important for the country” that Congress vote on it next week.

Investors had to contend with an economic report pointing to underlying weakness in inflation as consumer prices rose at a slower pace than economists’ had anticipated.

The Labor Department said on Wednesday its Consumer Price index rose 0.4% last month. In the twelve months through November, core-inflation, however, undershot expectations rising just 1.7%. Economists expected.

Fed chair Janet Yellen downplayed the recent slowdown inflation, insisting that softness in inflation related to “transient factors”.

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