A customer places a 10,000 yen note on the checkout counter while shopping at Akidai YK supermarket in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, June 27, 2022.
Kiyoshi Ohta | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were mostly lower on Friday as investors assessed Japan’s November wages and household spending.
actual household expenditure Japan’s economy fell 0.4% year-on-year in November, a slower decline than the 0.6% decline expected in a Reuters poll of economists.
The decline was also smaller than October’s 1.3% drop.
The average real income per household in November was 514,409 yen ($3,252.98), an increase of 0.7% from the same period last year.
Japanese Nikkei 225 Index It opened down 0.41%, with the broad-based Topix index down a smaller 0.27%.
Korean Cospi was the only exception, rising 0.21%, but the small-cap Kosdaq fell 0.14%
Australian S&P/ASX 200 Index Reversing earlier gains, it was trading just below flatline.
Hong Kong Futures Hang Seng Index It was last quoted at 19,320 points, opening stronger than the Hang Seng Index’s closing point of 19,240.89 points.
U.S. markets were closed on Thursday overnight for the funeral of former President Jimmy Carter, but traders will assess labor data from the U.S. on Friday, including December non-farm payrolls.
Economists expect the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics to report an increase of 155,000 nonfarm payrolls on Friday morning, down from 155,000 in 2017. A surprising 227,000 new people were added in November But it is basically consistent with the four-month average. The unemployment rate is expected to hold steady at 4.2%.
—CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.
