EQUITIES: Asia Equities Mostly Higher, China Evergrande Ordered Into Liquidation

Asia equities are mostly higher to start the trading week, with China equities mixed. US Equity futures opened lower this morning on the back of the attack on a Russian Oil tanker in the Red Sea (late on Friday) and the weekend attack on US soldiers in Jordan near the border with Syria, but along with other markets have recovered most of the initial move lower. Eminis are 015% lower, while the Nasdaq trades flat today. China Evergrande news has dominated the headlines here in Asia, after creditors were unable to come to an agreement on a restructurer pushing shares to lowest on record before a trading halt was put in place.

• Japan Equity indices are in the green today, energy producers are leading the way as the price of oil jumped, while Toyota is trading higher by 3.27% as the leading contributor to the Topix. The Nikkei 225 is up 1.09%, while the Topix is up 1.34%
• Hong Kong was up as much as 1.81% today, but has given a large chuck of that up now to be trading just 0.88% higher, Alibaba has contributed to most of the gain, Property names are also higher in Hong Kong today after the southern city of Guangzhou eased home-buying restrictions and pledged more financing support.
• China mainland stocks are underperforming today. News around China Evergrande, seemed to weigh on sentiment, with creditors unable come to a restructuring agreement and courts ordering Evergrande to be liquidated. China announced early last week that they were looking into a stock market rescue package and an MLF rate cut, and over the weekend the securities regulator said they will halt the lending of certain shares for short selling from this morning, however these measures haven't been enough to give the market the push higher it's been after. There has been concerns over the Biden administrations announcement around requiring US cloud firms to reveal foreign clients developing AI applications, and that some US lawmakers had proposed legislation targeting Chinese biotech companies. Currently the CSI 300 is close to flat while the ChiNext is 2.30% lower.
• Taiwan continues its winning streak from last week, trading 0.60% higher today, with energy names leading the way.
• In Korea, strong start to the week with the Kospi up 1.65%.
• Australia, is on track to make it six straight sessions of gains, and is currently 50 points away from all time highs, the market is being lead higher today Oil & Gas names. ASX 200 is currently 0.30% higher.
• In SEA, Nifty 50 is up 1.15%, Indonesia is up 0.90% while the Philippines are lower by 0.25%