A study of affluent Chinese released this month by consulting firm Oliver Wyman found that 22% of respondents were negative about the economy when surveyed in May. It just exceeds the 21% seen in October 2022, just before Beijing announced plans to ease its stringent zero-Covid policy.
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Asia-Pacific markets were set for a mixed session as investors look toward private data for China’s factory activity in January.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 futures pointed to a stronger open, with the contract in Chicago at 53,670, and its counterpart in Osaka at 53,590, compared to the previous close of 53,322.85.
Hong Kong Hang Seng index futures were at 27,330, below the benchmark’s last close of 27,387.11.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.57%.
Investors will continue monitoring gold and silver prices after Friday’s sharp declines. Silver, which has more than doubled over the past 12 months, plunged around 30% last Friday, marking the metal’s worst one-day performance since 1980. Gold also dropped around 9%.
Spot gold was last trading at $4,744 per ounce, while silver was at about $80 per ounce.
Futures tied to the main U.S. benchmarks fell during early Asia hours as Wall Street begins a new month of trading, with traders keeping an eye on bitcoin after a weekend sell-off.
Dow Jones Industrial Average futures lost 143 points, or 0.3%. S&P 500 futures dipped 0.6%, while Nasdaq-100 futures shed nearly 1%.
Bitcoin dropped below $80,000 for the first time since April, a sign investors were taking more risk off the table following the sharp declines in gold and silver.
Bitcoin last traded around $76,700.
Last Friday, U.S. stocks retreated as technology shares remained in a funk, even as investors largely approved of U.S. President Donald Trump’s pick of Kevin Warsh to lead the Federal Reserve.
Still, the S&P 500 squeaked out a January gain, despite Friday’s losses and volatile trading this month. The broad index fell 0.43% to finish at 6,939.03, its third straight down day.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average pulled back 0.36%, to settle at 48,892.47. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite underperformed, dropping 0.94%, to end the day at 23,461.82. All three indexes fell more than 1% at session lows.
— CNBC’s Fred Imbert, Alex Harring, Lisa Kailai Han and Pia Singh contributed to this report.