Asia's main stock indices show mixed trading on Monday. South Korea's KOSPI, Japan's Nikkei 225, and Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.86%, 0.31%, and 1.54% respectively. At the same time, China's Shanghai Composite and Shenzhen Composite lost 0.89% and 0.35% respectively. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index is the worst performer of the day. It plunged by 5.57%.
A fall in China's indices came after it became known that Xi Jinping remained the head of the CCP. Investors fear that tough COVID-19 restrictions may pose a serious threat to the Chinese economy. In addition, no changes are expected in China's current real estate policy, which is now in a state of crisis, and the tech sector.
China's quarterly GDP came in at 3.9%, above market expectations of 3.4%. In the second quarter, the economy grew just by 0.4%. Overall, China's economy expanded by 12.5% in the first three quarters of the year. Meanwhile, imports increased by 4.1% for the same period.
Last month, retail sales in China came in at 2.5%, missing economists' expectations of 3.3%. Meanwhile, the country's trade surplus grew. This was due to a 5.7% increase in exports, while imports rose by only 0.3% year-over-year. The former indicator also came above market forecasts of 4%, while the latter one missed the expectations of 1%.
Hong Kong's main index tumbled amid a steep fall in the share value of some large firms: Meituan lost 12.4%, Baidu, Inc. dropped by 10.7%, Tencent Holdings, Ltd. dived by 9.2%, and Longfor Group Holdings, Ltd. sank by 12.2%. Likewise, Alibaba Group and JD.com, Inc. declined by 10.4% and 11% respectively.
HSBC's stock added 0.5%, while CK Infrastructure Holdings Ltd. and Techtronic Industries Co. gained 3.4% and 1.1% respectively.
Japan's Nikkei 225 gained up to 1% but ended up closing just 0.31% higher.
At first, the index grew on expectations of a less hawkish US Fed as well as the yen's reaction to macro data in Japan.
However, following a mass sell-off in the Hong Kong exchange and Xi Jinping's re-election, investor sentiment in Japan got worse.
Among the Nikkei's 225 constituents, J.Front Retailing(-3.72%), Isetan Mitsukoshi Holdings (-3.56%), Takashimaya (-3.28%), and Mitsubishi Estate (-2,6%) posted biggest losses. SoftBank Group closed down by 0.43%, following a 3.8% rise.
At the same time, Tokyo Electron and Advantest gained 2.01% and 3.09% respectively. Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha, Ltd. advanced by 4.4%, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Ltd. rose by 4.2%, Sumitomo Metal Mining, Co. added 4.1%, and Nippon Yusen K.K. grew by 3.7%.
The KOSPI's constituents showed mixed trading: Samsung Electronics increased by 2.7%, while Hyundai Motor dropped by 2.7%.
As for Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index, the main contributors to its gains were BHP (+2.6%) and Rio Tinto (+1.2%) as well as Commonwealth Bank (+1.2%), National Australia Bank (+0.7%), Westpac Banking (+0.6%), and ANZ Bank (+0.2%).
