distribute trade today: Asian stocks decline as China stimulus schedule disappoints markets

HONG KONG — Asian stocks fell on Monday, led by a more than 2% drop in Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index, as China’s stimulus package disappointed investor expectations.

China on Friday approved a 6 trillion yuan ($839 billion) schedule during a national legislature conference. The long-anticipated stimulus is designed to assist local governments refinance their mountains of debt in the latest push to rev up growth in the globe’s second-largest economy.

“It’s not exactly the growth rocket many had hoped for. While it’s a substantial number, the stimulus is less about jump-starting market advancement and more about plugging holes in a struggling local government structure,” Stephen Innes of SPI property Management said in a commentary.

Meanwhile, China’s expense boost rate in October rose 0.3% year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday, marking a slowdown from September’s 0.4% boost and dropping to its lowest level in four months.

The Hang Seng fell 2.2% to 20,270.77, and the Shanghai Composite lost 0.4% to 3,437.90.

Japan’s standard Nikkei 225 slipped 0.4% in morning buying and selling to 39,347.79. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 0.5% to 8,252.70. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1% to 2,534.82.

U.S. derivatives were higher while oil prices declined.

On Friday, the S&P 500 rose 0.4% to 5,995.54, its biggest weekly gain since early November 2023 and briefly crossed above the 6,000 level for the first period. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.6% to 43,988.99, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.1% to 19,286.78.

In the debt safety trade, longer-term Treasury yields eased.

A preliminary update in the morning suggested sentiment among U.S. consumers rose for a fourth straight month to its highest level in six months. The survey from the University of Michigan, which was conducted before Tuesday’s election, also said expectations for expense boost in the coming year eased to the lowest level since 2020.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury slipped to 4.30% Friday from 4.33% late Thursday. But it’s still well above where it was in mid-September, when it was close to 3.60%.

Treasury yields climbed in large part because the U.S. economy has remained much more resilient than feared. The aspiration is that it can continue to remain solid as the Federal safety net continues to cut yield rates in order to keep the job trade humming, now that it’s helped get expense boost nearly down to its 2% target.

Some of the rise in yields has also been because of Trump. He talks up tariffs and other policies that economists declare could drive expense boost and the U.S. government’s debt higher, along with the economy’s growth.

Traders have already begun paring forecasts for how many cuts to rates the Fed will deliver next year because of that. While lower rates can boost the economy, they can also provide expense boost more fuel.

In other dealings Monday, U.S. standard crude oil lost 27 cents to $70.11 per barrel in electronic buying and selling on the recent York Mercantile swap.

Brent crude, the international standard, gave up 21 cents, to $73.66 per barrel.

The dollar rose to 153.36 Japanese yen from 152.62 yen. The euro edged up to $1.0725 from $1.0723.

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AP Writer Stan Choe contributed to this update.