China trade data, India CPI, China bond yields

Asia-Pacific markets traded lower Monday, after U.S. jobs report on Friday dampened investors’ hopes for early interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

China’s exports and imports in December beat expectations by a significant margin. Exports rose 10.7% from a year earlier, beating Reuters’ expectations of a 7.3% year-on-year growth. The country’s imports in December unexpectedly rose 1%, compared with Reuters’ estimates of a 1.5% decline.

Mainland China’s benchmark CSI 300, however, was down 0.59%, having closed at its lowest level since September 2024 on Friday.

Investors in Asia will continue to keep an eye on Chinese bond yields after the country’s central bank suspended purchases of government bonds last Friday. China’s 10-year bond yield plunged to a record low this month.

The country’s onshore yuan hit a 16-month low against the dollar last week, while the offshore yuan has been on a multi-month slide since last September.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 1.19%, trading below 19,000 for the first time since last September, data from LSEG showed.

India is slated to report its inflation numbers later in the day. India’s Nifty 50 index lost 0.95% and the BSE Sensex was 0.80% lower.

South Korea’s Kospi lost 1.04% to close at 2,489.56 while the Kosdaq dipped 1.35% to close the trading day at 708.21.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.23% to close at 8,191.9.

Japan markets are closed for a holiday.

Looking to the rest of this week, the Bank of Korea is expected to meet this Thursday, and Australia is slated to post its unemployment rate for December on the same day. China will be posting its GDP for the fourth quarter of 2024 on Friday, alongside retail sales and industrial output data.

U.S. stocks dropped Friday after a hot jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 696.75 points, or 1.63%, to close at 41,938.45. The S&P 500 slid 1.54% to 5,827.04, while the Nasdaq Composite fell 1.63% to 19,161.63. Friday’s losses pushed the major benchmarks into the red for 2025.

U.S. payrolls grew by 256,000 in December, while economists polled by Dow Jones expected to see an increase of 155,000. The unemployment rate, which was projected to remain at 4.2%, fell to 4.1% during the month. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note spiked to its highest level since late 2023 after the report.

—CNBC’s Pia Singh and Sean Conlon contributed to this report.