Shares were mostly higher Monday in Asia after Wall Street broke its three-day losing streak, trimming its losses for last week.
China factory data are due out on Tuesday and a quarterly business sentiment survey by the Bank of Japan comes on Wednesday.
The forthcoming major concern for Wall Street might be an impending shutdown of the U.S. government, with a deadline fast approaching this week. Despite this, previous political stalemates have exerted minimal influence on the stock market.
U.S. jobs data also will be in the spotlight.
U.S. futures edged higher early Monday and oil prices fell.
Tokyo’s Nikkei was the regional outlier, giving up 1% to 44,892.52.
Chinese markets advanced, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong adding 1.5% to 26,518.03, while the Shanghai Composite index gained 0.1% to 3,832.65.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.7% to 8,545.70, while the Kospi in South Korea surged 1.3% to 3,430.57.
U.S. stocks managed to lessen their weekly losses on Friday following a report indicating that inflation is in line with economists’ predictions, even though it remains elevated.
The S&P 500 experienced an increase of 0.6% to reach 6,643.70. Meanwhile, the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.7% to 46,247.29, and the Nasdaq composite rose 0.4% to 22,484.07. All three indexes moved closer to the historic highs they achieved at the beginning of the week.
Stocks benefited from the report showing that inflation in the U.S. surged to 2.7% last month from July’s 2.6%, according to the price measure favored by the Federal Reserve. Although this rate surpasses the Fed’s 2% goal, it aligned precisely with economist predictions.
This fueled some optimism that the Fed might proceed with reducing interest rates to stimulate the economy. In the absence of these cuts, the growing critique that stock valuations have become excessively high due to rapid increases would gain more traction.
The Fed just delivered its first rate cut of the year last week but is not promising more because they could worsen inflation.
Another report indicated that U.S. consumer sentiment was weaker than anticipated by economists. The University of Michigan’s survey revealed consumers’ frustration with high prices, but their inflation expectations for the coming year slightly decreased to 4.7% from 4.8%.
One factor threatening to push inflation higher, adding to consumer woes, is President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and he announced more late Thursday. They include taxes on imports of some pharmaceutical drugs, kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, upholstered furniture and heavy trucks starting on Oct. 1.
Details were sparse about the coming tariffs, as is often the case with Trump’s pronouncements on his social media network. That left analysts unsure of their ultimate effects, and the announcement created ripples in the U.S. stock market instead of huge waves.
Paccar, the company based in Bellevue, Washington, that’s behind the market-dominant Peterbilt and Kenworth truck brands, revved 5.2% higher, for example.
Big U.S. pharmaceutical companies nudged higher. Eli Lilly rose 1.4%, and Pfizer added 0.7%.
In other trading early Monday, U.S. benchmark crude oil lost 49 cents to $65.23 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, declined 42 cents to $68.80 per barrel.
Reports that the OPEC plus oil producing nations might raise their production limits next month have added to worries over oversupply, analysts said.
The U.S. dollar slipped to 148.93 Japanese yen from 149.51 yen. The euro rose to $1.1727 from $1.1703.
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