Filming an elevated overpass in Shanghai evening on a high-rise building
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Asia-Pacific markets traded mixed on Thursday after a soft inflation report in the U.S. helped two of the three benchmarks on Wall Street reverse course from two days of losses.
The consumer price index — a broad-based measure of costs across the U.S. economy — increased 0.2% month-on-month in February, putting the annual inflation rate at 2.8%.
The latest reading “is welcome relief,” Vishnu Varathan, Mizhuo Bank’s head of macro research in Asia excluding Japan.
“Crucially, February’s inflation will almost certainly not entail any tariff impact, which means that the relief, while welcome, is redemption for Fed [U.S. Federal Reserve] hawks concerned about price shocks piling on,” he explained in a Thursday note.
Looking ahead, Varathan said it is “premature for the Fed to let its guard down at this juncture.”
Over in Japan, the benchmark Nikkei 225 picked up 0.98%, while the broader Topix index rose 0.82%.
South Korea’s Kospi index gained 0.81%, while the small-cap Kosdaq advanced 0.37%.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 was lost 0.06%, reversing course from gains earlier in the day.
Investors will be keeping a watch on Indian stocks after the South Asia giant’s inflation rate cooled to a lower-than-expected 3.61% in February as vegetable prices edged down.
Nomura economists Sonal Varma and Aurodeep Nandi note that the latest reading “supports higher Q4 FY25 GDP growth, but the magnitude is still unclear.”
Going forward, they “expect benign inflation readings to sustain.” They also added that headline inflation should rise to around 3.8% year-on-year in March, while subdued demand, higher crop output and low manufacturing costs is likely to keep CPI inflation below 4% in the first quarter of 2025, they wrote in a Thursday note.
Overnight in the U.S., the Nasdaq Composite picked up after the soft inflation report eased concerns about a looming recession and as investors snapped up technology shares.
The tech-heavy benchmark added 1.22% and closed at 17,648.45, while the S&P 500 gained 0.49% to end at 5,599.30. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 82.55 points, or 0.2%, to settle at 41,350.93.
The tech sector is off more than 3% week to date, but bounced back in the session to lead gains In the S&P 500. Top performers include Nvidia, which gained 6.4%, and AMD which added more than 4%. Meanwhile, Meta Platforms advanced 2% and Tesla jumped more than 7%.
CNBC will be hosting “CONVERGE LIVE,” an inaugural thought leadership event on March 12-13, 2025, in Singapore, where global business leaders, entrepreneurs, investors and key decision-makers will discuss what it means to innovate and grow by collaborating and sharing ideas across industries.
Viewers can watch the live stream of the event and hear from speakers including Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister Kim Yong Gan, Alibaba Group Chairman Joe Tsai, Bridgewater Associates Founder Ray Dalio, and Salesforce CEO, chair, and co-founder Marc Benioff and others here.
— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Brian Evans contributed to this report.
