Asian Stocks Up Ahead of U.S. Inflation Data and Powell’s Testimony By Investing.com

By Doris Yu

Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were up Monday morning as investors keep an eye on the inflation data and U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s testimony later this week for further clues on the economic recovery from COVID-19 and the timeline of asset tapering.

Japan’s was up 2.27% by 10:31 PM ET (2:31 AM GMT).

South Korea’s rose 0.93% after the country tightened its COIVD-19 curbs from Monday to the strictest level possible in Seoul and neighboring regions to combat the outbreak of the virus.

In Australia, the rose 0.90%. Australia reported its biggest daily rise in COVID-19 cases this year on Monday due to . The country’s biggest city is entering its third week of lockdown.

Hong Kong’s was up 0.86%.

China’s was up 1.13% while the was up 1.17%.

China released data including economic growth, trade, retail sales and industrial output as the country suddenly eased its policy in the previous week.

“Expectations around China’s outlook have soured over the past month as a result of some disappointing partial data made a lot worse by the optics of coming off peak growth from the pandemic recovery… however, annual growth is still expected to be above 8.0% and, through the second half of 2022, the quarterly growth pulse should firm back to trend,” said Westpac analysts in a note.

The U.S. will release the (CPI) and the for June later this week. Investors will also be monitoring testimony by Powell on Wednesday and Thursday to give clues on the possibility of any talk of early tapering.

Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury Yields were steady at 1.365%, falling to 1.25% on Friday following eight straight sessions of price gains.

“The rally in U.S. rates in July has been remarkable,” NatWest Markets analysts told Reuters. “No one driver perfectly explains the move…but fears about global growth and the COVID-19 Delta variant had raised new doubts on inflation.”

Across the Atlantic, European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said on Monday that the central bank will change its guidance on monetary stimulus in 10 days, and indicated that fresh policy might be brought in 2022 to support the European economy after the current bond program ends.