Stocks in Asia were mixed overnight with the Nikkei (^N225) rising 0.3% on the day in Japan, while the Hang Seng (^HSI) fell 0.5% in Hong Kong.
Japanese yields have partly bucked the international trend this morning with the strongest 10-year auction since October 2023 helping yields dip -1.4bps.
However, 30-year yields have followed their international peers and are up 1.7bps in Asia trading, hovering around their highest ever yield since they were first issued in 1999. This is ahead of a 30-year auction on Thursday.
The Shanghai Composite (000001.SS) was 0.5% down by the end of the session and in South Korea, the Kospi (^KS11) added 0.9% on the day, recovering from losses in their previous sessions.
Data released this morning indicated that South Korea’s headline inflation decreased for the second month in a row, reaching a nine-month low of 1.7% year-on-year in August (compared to an expected 1.9% and 2.1% in July).
This decline has been primarily attributed to a 50% reduction in bills from SK Telecom (017670.KS, SKM), the country’s largest mobile service provider, thus helping to keep inflation below the central bank’s 2% target and opening the door for additional rate cuts to bolster the economy.
Across the pond on Wall Street, markets were closed ahead of the final stretch of the year. The US will return today from yesterday’s Labor Day holiday.