Asia markets live today: Tokyo inflation, EVs fall

China’s property stocks extended gains on Friday, with the CSI 300 real estate sector hitting a near four-week high.

The index was last up 2.5% in morning trading, after rising nearly 6% on Thursday. It has gained nearly 12% in the last four sessions.

China’s real estate stocks jumped in the previous session after the People’s Bank of China along with the Ministry of Finance announced measures that would help boost the liquidity available to property developers.

The new measures will be valid until the end of 2024.

Shares of Hong Kong-listed Country Garden rose 1.4%, Logan Group gained 1.6% and CK Asset Holdings added 1.5%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Mainland Properties index rose 0.3% after climbing 4.3% in the last session.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Japan’s central bank will not terminate its negative interest rate and yield curve control policy based on “specific numerical values” including negotiations around wage increases.

According to minutes of the BOJ’s December meeting, several board members said exiting from the NIRP and YCC will be “decided at each future meeting based on various data and information obtained at each point in time.”

At the meeting, some members also expressed the view that the bank was currently not in a situation where it would “fall behind the curve” if it did not rush to raise policy interest rates.

The members added even if the BOJ made a decision once the labor-management wage negotiations conclude in spring 2024, “it would not be too late.”

— Lim Hui Jie

The inflation rate in Japan’s capital city of Tokyo fell to 1.6% in January, down from 2.4% in December.

Tokyo’s inflation rate is widely considered to be a leading indicator of nationwide inflation trends in Japan.

Tokyo’s core inflation rate, which strips out prices of fresh food, also came in at 1.6%, lower than the 1.9% expected by economists polled by Reuters and also lower then December’s 2.1%.

The so called “core-core” inflation rate, which strips out fresh food and energy prices and is watched by the Bank of Japan, fell to 2.2% in January from 2.7%.

— Lim Hui Jie

Europe’s power grid is in dire need of an upgrade, Goldman Sachs says, naming stocks it expects to benefit from the network’s expansion and modernization.

“We believe that stocks with a large exposure to power grids will benefit from a solid growth driver, for at least the coming ten years,” they wrote. “Power grids sit in the sweet spot of electrification: besides an accelerating top line, we highlight attractive risk-adjusted returns, which are usually set on a ‘cost plus’ basis.”

Goldman’s analysts named two buy-rated stocks to play the theme.

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— Amala Balakrishner

The U.S. economy expanded by 3.3% in the fourth quarter, easily surpassing expectations. Economists polled by Dow Jones had forecast the economy grew by 2% in the fourth quarter.

The report also included encouraging data on the inflation front. The price index for personal consumption expenditures rose 2.7% on an annualized basis, down from 5.9% a year prior. Core PCE increased by 3.2%, down from 5.1%.

The report comes as investors look ahead to possible Federal Reserve rate cuts later this year.

— Fred Imbert

Oil prices rallied on Thursday as demand expectations rose on strong U.S. economic growth and China stimulus, while supply tightened after winter storms hit crude production.

The West Texas Intermediate contract for March rose $1.22, or 1.62%, to trade at $76.31 a barrel. The Brent March contract gained $1.21, or 1.51%, to trade at $81.25 a barrel.

U.S. crude remaining above $76 a barrel would indicate a breakout that confirms oil’s immediate trend has moved to the upside, according to Matt Maley, chief market strategist with Miller Tabak.

This would be also a good sign for energy stocks which have lagged crude prices since mid-December, Maley said. If crude oil confirms a change in trend, energy stocks will have to play catch up, he told CNBC.

— Spencer Kimball

Tesla (-26.5%) has already lost more value in 2024 than Boeing (-23%), quite an impressive feat.

Now the EV maker is competing with washed out solar energy stocks to register some of the largest declines early in the new year.

For the time being, Sunnova Energy (-31.3% in 2024) and Sunrun (-27%) have declined more than Tesla so far this year. But Tesla now surpasses the declines in both SolarEdge Technologies (-25.3%) and Enphase Energy (-19.6%).