E-Minis Lower, China PMIs Boost Mainland & HK

The major regional equity indices were mixed in Asia-Pac hours, ahead of widespread regional holidays, with China and Hong Kong representing the major market closures in the coming days.

• The Trump-Biden debate dominated, with Biden holding firm under pressure, although he missed some opportunities to counter Trump and struggled with some of the law enforcement questions. Nonetheless, Trump's attack dog like approach wouldn't have done much to persuade undecided voters and he also failed to denounce the activities of far-right groups. On net, we didn't learn much from the debate and the odds of Trump retaining office nudged marginally lower. E-minis are now negative on the day after rallying during the early part of the debate. But ultimately Biden's liberal leaning policies and Trump's continued assault on postal voting outweighed the early move higher.
• Chinese PMI data was in line to better than expected supporting Chinese and Hong Kong indices. Positive steps from Evergrande on the liquidity front would have also bolstered sentiment there.
• Nikkei 225 -0.1%, Hang Seng +1.3%, CSI 300 +0.8%, ASX 200 -1.3%.
• S&P 500 futures -9, DJIA futures -74, NASDAQ 100 futures -25.