Most Asian shares concluded largely in the negative despite the S&P 500's record-breaking close-out on the previous Friday, amidst subdued holiday trading on Monday.
A number of major Asian markets including mainland China, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Singapore were non-operational due to the Lunar New Year celebrations, while the Japanese returned to observe National Day.
Investors set their sights on this week's announcement of U.S. consumer price inflation data for January as well as Japan’s GDP figures for the closing quarter of 2023, in a bid to gather insights concerning the economic and monetary policy course ahead.
This week, market traders are also standing by for discussions from an array of Fed officials in a quest for further guidance on the Fed's interest rate path.
The day ended with Australian markets on the downtrend upon an announcement by CSL stating that a phase 3 trial for a heart-related medication had failed to meet its chief efficacy endpoint. Following this development, the pharmaceutical company's shares sagged by 4.8%, pulling down the benchmark S&P/ASX 200 by 0.39% to 7,614.90. The wider All Ordinaries index drew nearer to closure, 0.31% down at 7,860.30.
However, there was a silver lining as lender ANZ Group Holdings saw share rise by 1.3%, and electronics vendor JB Hi-Fi witnessed a share price surge of 7.1% after reporting better-than-anticipated earnings.
Despite this glimmer of positivity, New Zealand's reference S&P/NZX-50 index dropped 0.88% to 11,757.97, in the lead up to Fletcher Building's half-year results anticipated to be announced on Wednesday.
In India, the Sensex decreased by 0.8% to 71,043, with public sector banking institutions and media stocks facing a sell-off.
However, U.S. stocks made a comeback on Friday after a revision revealed that the U.S monthly consumer prices had witnessed a lesser increase than first approximated in December. Consequently, the tech-centric Nasdaq Composite rallied to its peak in over two years with a 1.3% rise, S&P 500 gained 0.6% to close above 5,000 for the first-ever time, cultivating a fifth continuous week of gains while the narrower Dow Jones index slipped marginally by 0.1%.
