Asian Stock Market: Ignores upbeat China PMIs as US presidential debate disappoints

• Asian shares reverse initial gains as US political pessimism takes over China’s activity numbers for September.
• US President Donald Trump warns of delay in the election results.
• ASX 200 becomes the biggest loser, markets in China, Hong Kong and South Korea stands on the other end.

Asian equities trade mostly downside as the US presidential debate failed to meet market forecasts. Even if Democratic candidate Joe Biden is leading the race to be the next American President over the current occupier Trump, comments from the Republican leader suggest a delay in the election results and uncertainty going forward.

This leads global markets to easily forget China’s September month activity numbers. While the NBS Manufacturing PMI gave a big beat to 51.2 forecasts by rising to 51.5, its private counterpart from Caixin eased from 53.1 prior and market consensus to 53.00.

It’s worth mentioning that the US Republicans’ counteroffer to the Democratic proposal of a $2.2 trillion stimulus package and escalation of the stopgap funding bill also gained a little attention. Furthermore, news that the UK’s House of Commons passed the Internal Market Bill (IMB), adding worries for the Brexit talks, couldn’t as well lure the momentum traders.

While portraying the market performance, the MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rises 0.58% but Nikkei 225 slips 1.15%, to 23,277, as we write ahead of Wednesday’s European open. Further, Australia’s ASX 200 drops 1.90% whereas New Zealand’s NZX 50 recovers initial losses while printing 0.05% intraday declines.

Looking forward, stocks in China are around 0.5% up while South Korea’s KOSPI and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng are rising 1.0% and 0.85% by the time of the press. On the other hand, Indian’s BSE Sensex is copying NZX 50 while revisiting the opening levels after declining near 1.0% before a few minutes.

It should be noted that S&P 500 Futures drop 0.55%, mostly the same as the Wall Street benchmarks, whereas the US 10-year Treasury yields stay largely unaffected near 0.65%.

Considering China’s golden week holidays, starting from Thursday, the Asian session is less likely to be entertaining unless scheduled data Pacific majors perform magic.