Disappointing data on China’s trade balance for May put pressure on some Asian stock market indices.
The Nikkei 225 index of the Tokyo stock exchange dropped more than 1%, after the new records in over 30 years tested in the previous sessions.
China’s trade balance numbers showed that Chinese exports slipped 7.5% year-on-year to $283.5 billion in May, far worse than the 0.4% decline expected by economists interviewed by Reuters.
Imports fell 4.5% year on year to $217.69 billion in May, compared with an estimated 8% decline.
Australia’s GDP was also released today which, in the first quarter of the year, recorded growth of 2.3% on an annual basis, slightly below economists’ expectations.
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast the economy to expand by +2.4% year-on-year, up from a 2.7% increase in the fourth quarter of 2022.
On a quarterly basis, Australian GDP rose 0.2%, versus the 0.3% increase expected by economists.
The Institute of Statistics in Australia has highlighted that “this was the sixth consecutive increase in GDP on a quarterly basis, at the slowest pace of growth since the September 2021 quarter, when lockdowns were imposed to stem infections from the Delta wave of the Covid-19 pandemic”.
The Sydney Stock Exchange is frozen with a change of -0.01%. With regard to the other Asian stock exchanges, Seoul rose by 0.17%, Hong Kong and Shanghai rose by more than 1% and 0.15% respectively.