Asian shares began the week on a plaintive note amid losses on Wall Street and worries over China, while investors braced for a Federal Reserve meeting that might take another small step toward lifting U.S. interest rates. Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.5 percent, while MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.8 percent.
In China, the CSI300 index .CSI300 of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell 1 percent, with sentiment still soured by a poor PMI survey on manufacturing. Australia’s main index fell 0.2 percent as mining stocks struggled with the slump in global commodity prices.
Both copper and the Thomson Reuters CRB commodities index hit their lowest in six years. Early Monday, copper futures were off another 0.1 percent. The Fed’s policy-setting Open Market Committee meets on Tuesday and Wednesday and is considered highly unlikely to lift interest rates just yet, though it does still seem set on a move in September.
Content is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc. or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. If you would like to reproduce or redistribute any of the content found on MarketPulse, an award winning forex, commodities and global indices analysis and news site service produced by OANDA Business Information & Services, Inc., please access the RSS feed or contact us at info@marketpulse.com. Visit https://www.marketpulse.com/ to find out more about the beat of the global markets. © 2023 OANDA Business Information & Services Inc.