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Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were mostly mixed on Wednesday morning, with investors weighing the impact of elevated inflation on the economic recovery from COVID-19 and await corporate earnings reports.
China’s Shanghai Composite was down 0.42% by 9:55 PM ET (1:55 AM GMT) while the Shenzhen Component inched up 0.04%. Trade data, including exports, imports and trade balance, is due later in the day.
Inflation data, including the consumer and producer price indexes, will be released on Thursday. Concerns about indebted Chinese developers also increased as Sinic Holdings Group Co. Ltd. (HK:2103) became the latest one to warn of imminent default.
Hong Kong markets were closed due to a typhoon.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 edged down 0.11% while South Korea’s KOSPI rose 1.15%.
In Australia, the ASX 200 edged up 0.12%.
U.S. shares were down, with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) shares down as the company will likely cut its 2021 iPhone 13 production targets due to chip shortages.
Investors also nervously await corporate earnings releases due later in the week, with economic growth slowing and inflation increasing just as central banks prepare to begin asset tapering.
The U.S. 10-year Treasury yield slipped further below 1.60%, while the yield curve flattened. Crude oil paused its recent rally amid the ongoing global energy crunch.
“I think that some of these topics like inflation, the 10-year, COVID-19 variants, the future of corporate taxes, of course they are going to weigh on the market, but I still think that we are in an economic recovery,” Defiance ETFs chief investment officer and co-founder Sylvia Jablonski told Bloomberg.
Fed Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic said inflationary pressures are lasting longer than expected, and it is thus inappropriate to describe the rise as transitory. Bostic’s colleague, Vice Chairman Richard Clarida, also said that the conditions required for the Fed to begin asset tapering have “all been met.”
The Fed will release the minutes from its latest meeting, and the U.S. will release its latest consumer price index, later in the day.
Meanwhile, the International Monetary Fund warned of the risk of sudden and steep declines in global equity prices and home values as global central banks slowly begin asset tapering.
