Asian Stock Market: Indecisive as Evergrande updates battle inflation fears

• Asian equities trade mixed as US banking holiday restricts post-inflation reaction.
• China’s Evergrande misses default for the third time.
• Australia jobs report surprises with downbeat figures, commodities consolidate recent moves.

Asian shares fail to portray market direction as China’s Evergrande saves the bulls even as the US inflation figures roiled market sentiment the previous day. Also troubling the investors is the thin liquidity in the bond markets due to the US banking holiday.

That being said, the MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan drops 0.45% whereas Japan’s Nikkei marks half a percent of intraday gains while heading into Thursday’s European session.

Shares in Australia and New Zealand remain on the back foot, ASX 200 and NZX 50 are down 0.60% and 1.2% respectively, as markets remain cautious amid 31-year high US inflation figures that propel Fed rate hike expectations. In doing so, the Aussie traders ignore downbeat employment data for October. Indian markets also print losses amid the inflation woes and recent jump in the COVID-19 cases to the monthly high.

It should be noted, however, that not-so-positive comments from US Trade Representative (USTR) Katherine Tai citing weakness in China’s phase 1 performance test the optimists ahead of next week’s virtual summit of US President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

Elsewhere, markets in China and Hong Kong are up after Evergrande surprised traders with the third coupon payment. The real-estate shares are mainly behind the mild run-up in Asia.

On a broader front, S&P 500 Futures print mild gains while the US 10-year Treasury yields cling to 1.57% after rising the most in seven weeks the previous day.

Looking forward, headlines concerning China and Evergrande may entertain traders amid a partial off in the US and Canada.