Asian markets mostly down on weaker China GDP

FXstreet.com (Barcelona) - Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite (-0.96%), Hong Kong’s Hang Seng (-1.26%) and Japan’s Nikkei Stock Average (-0.95%) fell on Monday with the disappointing release of China GDP data, easing from 7.9% to 7.7% (consensus of 8.0%) in Q1 (YoY), while QoQ data came in at 1.6% (consensus of 1.9%). Also, Chinese urban investment (down from 21.2% to 20.9% vs 21.3% consensus) and industrial production (down from 9.9% to 8.9% vs 10% consensus) in March didn’t help the mood, unlike China retail sales that rose from 12.3% to 12.6%, against expectations of 12.5%.

Also affecting Japan’s Nikkei performance was the publication of Japan February industrial production (down from -5.8% to -10.5%) and capacity utilization (down from 1.7% to 0.7%). However, the monthly change in industrial production came in higher than expected, at 0.6% instead of -0.1%.

Futures for the German DAX 30 (+0.03%) and the French CAC 40 (+0.05%) are signaling a slightly higher opening ahead of EMU trade balance data.