Asian stocks open mixed ahead of US Fed meeting

Asian stocks opened on Tuesday mixed between negative and positive, with the Chinese, Japanese and Australian stocks falling, while New Zealand's stocks, Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korean Kospi index rose, after the latest economic data released by major Asian economies, while markets are parsing the recent developments in the US-China trade file, which comes ahead of the US Fed meeting.

The Reserve Bank of Australia Governor, Philip Lowe, delivered a speech at the AusPayNet Summit, in which he noted that the country's GDP data were broadly in line with forecasts and that confident consumers will spend more, as he touched on the fact that many citizens in his country has high debts, which could make spending take longer, explaining that weak consumption growth was a surprise in GDP.

This came before release of the Australian house price index reading, which showed a rise by 2.4% in Q1 vs. a decline by 0.7% in Q2, better than forecasts of 0.5%, the Australian National Bank Business Confidence index reading showed stability at zero vs. 2 in October.

Otherwise, China's annual CPI reading showed growth accelerated to 4.5%, in line with forecasts vs. 3.8% in October, while the annual reading of the PPI showed that contraction narrowed to 1.4% vs. 1.6%, beating forecasts of a contraction to 1.5%.

As for the latest developments in the US-China trade file, yesterday the US secretary of agriculture Sonny Perdue said, "We have a deadline coming up on the Dec.15 for another tranche of tariffs, I do not believe those will be implemented and I think we may see some backing away" this came after reports on the weekend that China had purchased five shipments of US soybeans, estimated at 300,000 tons.

White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow said on Friday, that the US and China trade deal is close, but the Trump administration is ready to end these talks if the deal is no good for Washington, adding that the US is ready to increase the tariffs on Chinese goods as scheduled on December 15, in case a trade agreement isn't reach, which is a tool used by the US within their talks to push China to increase its purchases of US farm goods.

The markets are cautiously awaiting the date for the US planned tariffs hike by 15% on Chinese goods worth $160 billion is due December 15, while President Donald Trump said last week that a trade agreement with China might have to wait until after the presidential election in 2020, and his administration will see what happens in the coming period.

As for trading, Japanese stock indices were lower during today's session, with the Topix index falling by 0.03% or 0.60 point to 1,721.47, and Nikkei 225 index rose by 0.08 % or 19.52 points to 23,411.18.

While the Chinese stocks fell, as the CSI 300 index fell by 0.09% or 3.57 points to 3,891.88, and the Shanghai Composite index fell 0.24% or 6.90 points to 2,907.58.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.07% or 17.58 points to 26,512.31, and South Korea's Kospi rose 0.24% or 5.10 points to 2,093.75.

To New Zealand's NZX 50, which rose by 0.20% or 22.52 points to 11,252.11, while Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index fell by 0.12% or 8.13 points to 6,721.90.