View of the central business district skyline at sunset in Beijing, China.
Sheng Peng | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets mostly fell on Monday as China’s GDP data missed expectations, while investors also assessed the impact of an assassination attempt on former U.S. President Donald Trump at a rally over the weekend.
David Roche, president of Quantum Strategy, said in a note on Sunday that Trump would win the presidency, with an increased probability of a Republican clean sweep of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.
On Monday, China’s statistics bureau announced that its economy grew 4.7% in the second quarter, missing expectations of a 5.1% expansion forecast by a Reuters poll and lower than the 5.3% rise seen in the first quarter.
China’s retail sales for June also came in lower than expected, growing 2% year on year, compared with expectations of 3.3% from economists polled by Reuters. Sales rose 3.7% in May.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.73% as of its final hour of trade, led by consumer stocks, while mainland China’s CSI 300 was 0.11% up at 3,476.25 after the economic data came in worse than expected.
Separately, China’s top leaders will gather this week for a highly anticipated meeting known as the Third Plenum, with analysts expecting the gathering to focus on areas such as high local government debt levels and a push for advanced manufacturing, instead of the country’s real estate sector.
Japan’s markets are closed for a public holiday.
South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.14% to close at 2,860.92, while the small-cap Kosdaq gained 0.3% to 852.88 and snapped a three-day losing streak.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 hit an all-time high and smashed past the 8,000 mark for the first time, closing up 0.73% at 8,017.6. The index was the only major Asia-Pacific benchmark in positive territory.
U.S. market futures rose on Monday morning, with futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average higher by 0.24%, while S&P 500 and Nasdaq saw gains of about 0.25% and 0.41% respectively.
—CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.
