Biden drops out, China LPR
Aerial drone view of Tokyo cityscape with Tokyo Sky Tree visible in Tokyo, Japan at sunrise.
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Asia-Pacific markets fell on Monday on news that US President Joe Biden has dropped out of the presidential raceendorsed Vice President Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
Investors will also assess the impact of global IT blackout on Friday. Machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system crashed on Friday due to a bug in an update released by the cybersecurity company Mob attackcausing shares to fall 11%.
Microsoft say in one blog post over the weekend estimated that 8.5 million Windows devices — or less than 1% of all Windows machines — are affected.
On Monday, the focus will be on the People’s Bank of China’s decision on its benchmark lending rate, with the one-year and five-year loan prime rates expected to remain unchanged at 3.45% and 3.95% respectively, according to economists polled by Reuters.
The one-year LPR serves as the benchmark for most corporate loans and the five-year LPR serves as the reference rate for mortgages.
Investors will be paying close attention to GDP data from South Korea and the United States this week, as well as factory activity data from across the region. South Korea and the United States will release provisional second-quarter GDP figures on Thursday.
Other economic data this week includes inflation figures from the US and Singapore on Friday and Tuesday.
Japan Nikkei 225 fell 0.5%, while the broader Topix index fell 0.41%. It was the first time in three weeks that the index fell below the 40,000 mark.
South Korea’s Kospi index fell 0.16%, while the small-cap Kosdaq index fell more sharply, down 0.39%.
of Australia S&P/ASX 200 led losses in the region, down 0.8% at the open.
In contrast, Hong Kong Hang Seng Index looks set to open higher, with HSI futures at 17,450 versus the most recent close of 17,417.68.
On Wall Street, all three major indexes fell on Friday, as US stocks closed out a week that has been shaped by a rotation of large-cap companies this year into smaller ones.
The S&P 500 down 0.71%, while heavy tech Nasdaq Composite slide 0.81%. Dow Jones Industrial Average down 377.49 points, or 0.93%, to 40,287.53.
— CNBC’s Alex Harring and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.
Correction: This story has been updated to correct the date of the previous US GDP release.
