A train loaded with coal is ready to leave a coal mine owned by China Energy Investment Corporation in Ejin Horo Banner, Ordos City, China’s Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, January 14, 2023.
Wang Zheng | Visual China Group | Getty Images
Asia Pacific markets were mixed on Friday as some markets return from the Christmas holidays and investors await economic data from the region.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.68% as trading resumed after the Christmas and Christmas holidays.
Japan Nikkei 225 rose 0.51% while the Topix gained 0.56%. South Korea Kospi fell 0.58%, while the Kosdaq was down 0.61%.
Investors assessed November inflation figures from the Japanese capital Tokyo, whose headline inflation rate was 3%, compared to 2.6% in October. Core inflation, which excludes the cost of fresh food, rose to 2.4%, falling short of Reuters expectations of a 2.5% rise. Tokyo inflation figures are widely considered a leading indicator of nationwide trends.
Japan’s unemployment rate was 2.5% in November, in line with Reuters estimates and unchanged from October.
Traders await China’s industrial earnings results for November.
Overnight in the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average erased earlier losses to post a small gain in weak trading on Thursday after the market posted strong back-to-back gains to start the holiday week.
The blue-chip Dow ended the day up 28.77 points, or 0.07%, at 43,325.80, after losing about 182 points earlier in the session. The S&P 500 fell 2.45 points, or 0.04%, to 6,037.59. The Nasdaq Composite also ended the day lower, falling less than 0.1% to 20,020.36.
—CNBC’s Yun Li contributed to this report.