Asian stocks slip ahead of Chinese economic data
Asian stocks slipped in early trading after US shares struggled to gain traction as traders prepared for a swath of Chinese data scheduled Friday including fourth-quarter growth.
Shares in Japan fell as the yen largely held onto gains from earlier in the week, while those in Australia fluctuated, weighed by Rio Tinto Group following a report it has held early stage talks on combining its business with Glencore Plc. US equity futures were little changed.
The downward start in Asia comes as a global risk rally this week, sparked by traders re-adjusting Federal Reserve interest rate cut bets following Wednesday’s benign inflation data, loses steam. The focus will now shift to official Chinese data due Friday that is likely to show the world’s second-largest economy failed to break a deflationary cycle last year.
“Stimulus, stimulus, stimulus, particularly on the fiscal side, is very much needed in China,” said Frederic Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC Holdings Plc in Hong Kong. “We’ve seen in other economies a big policy push is needed to permanently get out of disinflation. And that’s something we think will gradually happen in China, but very gradually indeed.”
While growth in China is still expected to have expanded at a faster clip in real terms in the final quarter, the gross domestic product deflator — the broadest measure of price changes in an economy — will reach minus 0.2% in 2025, according to the median forecast of 15 analysts polled by Bloomberg.
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