Asian equities declined on Thursday as investors focused on key Chinese manufacturing data and sliding oil prices.
China’s HSBC flash manufacturing purchasing manager’s index (PMI) rose to a three-month high of 50.4 in October, above the bank’s final reading of 50.2 last month. Despite the improvement, the report highlighted issues in Beijing’s economy with factory output falling to a five-month low. The data comes amid speculation of additional stimulus measures to boost growth after third-quarter gross domestic product growth hit a more than five-year low.
“While the manufacturing sector likely stabilized in October, the economy continues to show signs of insufficient effective demand. This warrants further policy easing and we expect more easing measures on both the monetary as well as fiscal fronts in the months ahead,” said Hongbin Qu, China chief economist, and co-head of Asian economic research at HSBC.
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