In South Korea, the\u00a0Kospi<\/a>\u00a0index dropped 1.73%, while the small-cap Kosdaq declined by 2.1%.<\/p>\n Over in Australia, the\u00a0S&P\/ASX 200<\/a> benchmark fell 0.94%.<\/p>\n \u2014 Amala Balakrishner<\/p>\n Japan’s June jobless rate unchanged at 2.5%<\/p>\n Japan’s unemployment rate was unchanged at 2.5% in June,<\/a> from the previous month, government data released Friday showed. This reading was in line with forecasts of economists polled by Reuters.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, there were 122 job openings for every 100 job seekers in June, lower than the 124 openings for every 100 job seekers in the previous month. This fell short of the 125 openings in Reuters’ median forecast.<\/p>\n Japan has experienced a tight labor market for over a decade, with the situation becoming more pronounced in recent years due to demographic challenges.<\/p>\n Good morning from Singapore and happy Friday.<\/p>\n Investors are assessing the U.S.’s latest tariff developments. They will also be keeping a watch on Japan’s jobs data for June and manufacturing data points for July from several countries in the region.<\/p>\n Japan’s benchmark\u00a0Nikkei 225<\/a>\u00a0was set to open lower, with the futures contract in Chicago at 40,785, while its counterpart in Osaka last traded at 40,760, against the index’s Thursday close of 41,069.82.<\/p>\n Futures for Hong Kong’s\u00a0Hang Seng index<\/a>\u00a0stood at 24,708 pointing to a weaker open compared with the HSI’s last close of 24,773.33.<\/p>\n Australia’s\u00a0S&P\/ASX 200<\/a>\u00a0was set to start the day lower with futures tied to the benchmark at 8,632, compared with its last close of 8,742.80.<\/p>\n \u2014 Amala Balakrishner<\/p>\n U.S. stock futures slip as investors await jobs report<\/p>\n U.S. equity futures<\/a> fell in early Asia hours Friday as investors digested the Big Tech earnings overnight and awaited the July jobs report.<\/p>\n Futures tied to the broad-based S&P 500<\/a>\u00a0lost 0.19%, while Nasdaq 100 futures<\/a>\u00a0were down 0.3% as of 7:58 a.m. Singapore time (7:58 p.m. Thursday ET). Futures for the\u00a0Dow Jones Industrial Average<\/a>\u00a0were flat.<\/p>\n \u2014 Amala Balakrishner<\/p>\n Stocks close lower, S&P 500 slides for third straight session<\/p>\n Stocks closed lower on Thursday, with the S&P 500 posting its third consecutive losing session.<\/p>\n The broad market index slipped 0.37% to close at 6,339.39, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.03% to 21,122.45. The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back 330.30 points, or 0.74%, to finish the session at 44,130.98.<\/p>\n \u2014 Brian Evans<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Asia-Pacific markets start the day lower Asia-Pacific markets started the day lower Friday. Japan’s Nikkei 225 benchmark fell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3091],"tags":[21351,15193,186,21344,21350,4959,51,3085,7989,10294,4750,21346,21342,21347,2441,3742,21349,8572,16678,3741,21348,10741,21341,16,15,21345,2726,21343],"class_list":{"0":"post-307922","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-markets","8":"tag-arm-holdings-plc","9":"tag-asia-economy","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-dollar-us-dollar-fx-spot-rate","12":"tag-breaking-news-asia","13":"tag-breaking-news-markets","14":"tag-business","15":"tag-business-news","16":"tag-dow-jones-industrial-average","17":"tag-dxy-us-dollar-currency-index","18":"tag-economic-events","19":"tag-hang-seng-index","20":"tag-ice-brent-crude-apr23","21":"tag-kospi-index","22":"tag-markets","23":"tag-nasdaq-composite","24":"tag-nikkei-225-index","25":"tag-nvidia-corp","26":"tag-prices","27":"tag-sp-500-index","28":"tag-sp-asx-200","29":"tag-shanghai","30":"tag-shenzhen-component-index","31":"tag-uk","32":"tag-united-kingdom","33":"tag-usd-jpy","34":"tag-world-markets","35":"tag-wti-crude-mar23"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=307922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Japan's](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/108130553-17443430321744343030-39306271866-1080pnbcnews.jpg\")
Here are the opening calls for the day <\/p>\n