Mixed As Chinese Stocks Rebound; U.S. Tech Earnings Haunt Asian Session

Asia-Pac equity indices are mixed at writing, finding little support from Wall St.’s strongly negative lead. Tech stocks across the region struggled, with pessimistic spillover from the tech-heavy NASDAQ’s (-4.0%) dismal showing during Tuesday’s NY session evident.

• The CSI300 sits 1.1% higher at typing, outperforming regional peers by a relatively wide margin. Consumer staples names lead gains, with large-cap Kweichow Moutai (+4.0%) contributing the most to gains in the index after reporting a 24% Y/Y increase in net profit. Broader risk appetite also received a lift from Chinese President Xi Jinping announcing late on Tuesday that the government would go “all out” to boost infrastructure investment and spending in key identified industries, while sentiment benefitted from reports showing fresh daily COVID cases in Shanghai declining for a fourth consecutive day to three-week lows.
• The Hang Seng Index trades a little above neutral levels at typing, reversing earlier losses after opening lower with outperformance in the Hang Seng Tech Index helping to neutralise drag from the index’s property and utilities sub-indices.
• The Australian ASX200 trades 0.7% lower, led under on drag from technology stocks. The S&P/ASX All Technology Index is 1.7% worse off at typing, with large-cap Block Inc leading losses. Commodity-related names provided some counter to the bearish pressure as some commodity benchmarks have rallied, with notable outperformance in energy equities.
• Looking ahead, Meta’s earnings call later today (2100 GMT) possibly bears watching, following the observed market reaction to recent earnings reported by Netflix, Alphabet, and Microsoft.
• U.S. e-mini equity index futures sit 0.3% to 0.7% better off at typing, operating at their respective session highs after rising off of six-week lows made late on Tuesday.