Asia stock markets: BOJ meeting, Japan unemployment

Asia-Pacific markets fell across the region on Tuesday as the Bank of Japan kicked off its two-day monetary policy meeting.

The BOJ is expected to raise its benchmark interest rate and trim its Japanese government bond purchases. Economists polled by Reuters expect the bank to increase its benchmark interest rate to 0.1%, up from the current range of 0% to 0.1%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 made a late comeback to climb 0.15% to 38,525.95, while the broad-based Topix fell 0.19% to finish at 2,754.45. Japan’s unemployment rate came in slightly lower than expected in July, at 2.5% compared to the 2.6% forecast by a Reuters poll of economists.

South Korea’s Kospi dropped 0.99% to end at 2,738.19, while the small-cap Kosdaq saw a smaller loss of 0.52%, closing at 803.78.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dropped 0.46% and finished at 7,953.2.

Heavyweight miner Fortescue fell by as much as 10.27% to a more than 20-month low after the Australian Financial Review reported that JPMorgan’s equity capital markets team was looking for buyers for 1.9 billion Australian dollars ($1.2 billion) of discounted Fortescue stock on behalf of an undisclosed institutional investor.

Hong Kong Hang Seng index was down 1.43% as of its final hour of trade, while mainland China’s CSI 300 fell 0.63%, extending its losses to 3,369.38 to hit new six-month lows.

In Hong Kong, shares of banking giant Standard Chartered climbed 4.84% after it announced its largest ever buyback of $1.5 billion and upgraded its 2024 income guidance during its first-half results.

Overnight in the U.S., the three major indexes ended mixed, with the S&P 500 marginally higher as Wall Street geared up for a busy week of corporate earnings and looked ahead to a key policy announcement from the U.S. central bank.

Economists don’t expect the Fed to make any changes to the federal funds rate during this meeting, but traders will look for clues on whether the central bank will cut rates in September.