A woman rides her bicycle with the Marina Bay Sands hotel and high-rise buildings in the background in Singapore on Sept. 4, 2023.
Roslan Rahman | AFP | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly higher Friday, after falling for the first few trading days of the new year.
Investors will be watching Southeast Asia’s economic data due later in the day, including inflation numbers from Thailand, as well as retail sales data from Singapore.
Data from Japan showed the contraction in its private sector activity might be over.
Most markets in Asia were set to fall for the week, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index leading the declines, down 2.8%.
Hang Seng opened about 0.2% lower, while China’s CSI 300 index gained 0.41%.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.12% higher, after suffering two straight days of losses.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 rose 0.55%, while the broader Topix added 0.66%.
South Korea’s Kospi dipped 0.06%, while the smaller-cap Kosdaq jumped 1.12%.
The Topix and Kosdaq were among top gainers for the week, set to rise over 1% each.
Overnight in the U.S., the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 0.56% to mark a fifth straight day of declines — its longest losing streak since October 2022.
The S&P 500 slid 0.34% to mark a four-day losing streak, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was the outlier, eking out a 0.03% gain.
— CNBC’s Sarah Min and Lisa Kailai Han contributed to this report
