An aerial view of a container ship leaving a shipyard in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province.
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Asia-Pacific markets were mixed on Friday after an inflation-fueled sell-off in the previous session, with investors weighing economic data from Singapore and South Korea and awaiting Chinese trade numbers.
Chinese trade data for March will be released later today, with exports expected to fall 2.3% year-on-year by economists polled by Reuters. This comes after a weaker-than-expected rise in the country's inflation rate on Thursday.
Advance estimates showed that Singapore's GDP rose in the first quarter by 2.7% year-on-year, faster than the 2.2% growth recorded in the last quarter of 2023.
The city-state's central bank kept its monetary policy steady, leaving the width and level of its policy scope unchanged. In contrast to other countries, Singapore uses exchange rate settings for its monetary policy, rather than a benchmark interest rate.
South Korea's unemployment rate rose to 2.8% in March. The country's benchmark Kospi index fell 0.26%, but the Kosdaq small business index rose 0.82% after South Korea's central bank kept interest rates unchanged at 3.5%, the highest level in 15 years.
Japan Nikki 225 The broad-based Topix rose 0.36%, while the broad-based Topix rose 0.48%.
in Australia, Standard & Poor's/ASX 200 decreased by 0.30%
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index fell 0.67% in the first hour of trading. China's CSI 300 index rose 0.28%.
Overnight in the US, technology stocks pulled back… Standard & Poor's 500 And Nasdaq Composite To positive territory, as both indicators rose by 0.74% and 1.68%, respectively.
On the other hand, the Dow Jones Industrial Average It decreased by 2.43 points, or 0.01%.
Nvidia jumped 4.1%, while Amazon It added 1.7% to reach an all-time high in the session, and the alphabet He got more than 2%.
apple The stock jumped 4.3% after Bloomberg News reported that the company will shift its Mac product line to chips focused on artificial intelligence. The iPhone maker posted its best day since May 2023.
CNBC's Hakyung Kim and Samantha Subin contributed to this report.
