Asia trades mixed, US equity FUTs reversed gain; US treasury FUTs decline

Asia Market Update: Asia trades mixed, US equity FUTs reversed gain; US Treasury FUTs decline; US Senate runoff elections in Georgia remain close, counting to resume Wednesday morning

General Trend

- Decliners in Australia include Consumer and Financial firms, Energy index rises

- HK Finance and Property indices decline, TECH index rises

- Shanghai-listed IT and Consumer firms declined during the morning session; Property and Financial firms rose

- Japanese Electric Appliances firms decline, Financials rise amid higher US Treasury yields

- Trump placed restrictions on additional Chinese apps

- American lawyer was arrested in HK under National Security Law

- Japan MOF official commented after USD/JPY briefly declined to 10-month low

- US Dec ADP employment data due later today

- US Electoral College certification is due on Wed (Jan 6th)

- Japan is expected to make decision on state of emergency on Thursday (Jan 7th)

Headlines/Economic Data

Australia/New Zealand

-ASX 200 opened -0.0%

- (AU) Australia Dec Final PMI Services: 57.0 v 57.4 prelim (confirms 4th month of expansion)

Japan

-Nikkei 225 opened -0.2%

- (JP) Japan Ministry of Finance Official: Cannot comment on reason for FX movements; Not in a similar situation as before the Flash Crash

- (JP) Japan Chief Cabinet Sec Kato: Need to decide on extending subsidies when time comes

-7974.JP Announces intention to acquire Canada's Next Level Games, no terms disclosed

-CG Expected to acquire 80% stake in Japan X-ray based testing tools maker Rigaku, in deal seen worth ¥100B and help it go public; would be first deal under its new Japan focused buyout fund - press

-(JP) Japan MoF sells ¥2.6T v ¥2.6T indicated in 0.1% 10-year JGBs; avg yield 0.019% v 0.019% prior; bid to cover: 3.40x v 3.42x prior

- (JP) Bank of Japan (BOJ) Q3 Output Gap: -3.34% v -4.75% prior (remains negative for second consecutive quarter)

Korea

-Kospi opened +0.1%

- (KR) South Korea Dec Foreign Reserves: $443.1B v $436.4B prior (Record high)

- (KR) North Korea leader Kim: 5-year economic plan did not meet its targets, reiterates call for self-reliance in boosting the country's strength, as the most certain and fast way to overcome difficulties we are facing - Party Congress

China/Hong Kong

-Hang Seng opened +0.1%; Shanghai Composite opened +0.1%

- (CN) NYSE considering reverting to original plan to delist China telecom companies – press

- (CN) Trump signs executive order than bans transactions with 8 China software applications (including Ant's Alipay)

- CHINA DEC CAIXIN PMI SERVICES: 56.3 V 57.9E (8th consecutive expansion); PMI Composite: 55.8 v 57.5 prior (8th consecutive expansion)

- (CN) China to take measures to encourage consumption of home appliances, autos and support to restaurants

- (HK) Hong Kong Dec PMI: 43.5 v 50.1 prior (lowest since April)

- BABA CNBC's Faber: Jack Ma is not missing, just laying low

- (CN) China PBOC Open Market Operation (OMO): Injects CNY10B in 7-day reverse repos v CNY10B in 7-day reverse repos prior; Net drain CNY130B v Net drain CNY130B prior

- (CN) China PBOC sets Yuan reference rate: 6.4604 v 6.4760 prior

- (HK) Hong Kong police reported "rounding up" dozens of pro-democracy politicians under the National Security Law - press

- (CN) S&P Dow Jones: To keep China telecoms ADRs in Indexes

Other

- According to Whitty extending gap between coronavirus jab doses creates small risk of 'escaped mutant' variant – Sky

- (SG) Singapore Dec PMI: 50.5 v 46.7 prior (highest since Jan 2020)

North America

- (US) Georgia Sec of State Raffensperger: ~200K votes left to be counted as of 23:58 EST (04:58GMT); hopefully by 12:00 EST well have a better idea of where we are

- (US) Fed's Evans (dove, non-voter): Would welcome above 2% inflation, 3% would not be so bad, hard to imagine out of control inflation - Q&A

- T CFO Stephens reiterates FY21 Free Cash Flow Target at $26B; notes new distribution deals with Xfinity and Roku, expect HBO Max activations to continue to increase

Levels as of 12:15ET

- Hang Seng -0.4%; Shanghai Composite -0.1%; Kospi +0.1%; Nikkei225 -0.1%; ASX 200 -1.1%

- Equity Futures: S&P500 -0.4%; Nasdaq100 -1.3%, Dax -0.2%; FTSE100 +0.5%

- EUR 1.2325-1.2277; JPY 102.88-102.59; AUD 0.7780-0.7733; NZD 0.7266-0.7236

- Commodity Futures: Gold -0.3% at $1,948/oz; Crude Oil +0.2% at $50.03/brl; Copper +0.1% at $3.65/lb