Night view of the Lujiazui financial district in downtown Shanghai.
Yongyuan Dai | E+ | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets traded mostly lower Friday as investors brace for a slate of economic data from China.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slipped 1.18%, while the Topix lost 1.28%. South Korea’s Kospi traded 0.5% lower while the Kosdaq shed 0.11%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost 0.25% at the open, while mainland China’s CSI fell 0.35%.
China is slated to report its fourth-quarter GDP numbers as well as industrial output and retail sales data for December. Reuters estimates China’s fourth-quarter GDP growth to come in at 5% year on year, compared with 4.6% in the previous quarter.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 added 0.1%.
Investors will also be looking at Singapore’s non-oil exports data for December.
Overnight in the U.S., the major averages gave up gains from earlier in the day with the S&P 500 slipping to end a three-day winning streak as big tech shares pulled back.
The broad market index slid 0.21% to 5,937.34. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.89% to 19,338.29. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 68.42 points, or 0.16%, to 43,153.13.
—CNBC’s Hakyung Kim and Sarah Min contributed to this report.
