Asia-Pacific stocks fall ahead of China GDP data

SINGAPORE — Asia-Pacific stocks slipped Friday ahead of China data including GDP and retail sales numbers.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 dropped 1.4%.

South Korea’s Kospi gave up early gains to decline 0.86% and the Kosdaq lost 0.71%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was about flat after rising in early trade, while the Topix index shed 0.54%.

Shares of Uniqlo-owner Fast Retailing jumped 7.59% after the company posted a record quarterly profit after the close on Thursday, Reuters reported.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan shed 0.33%.

China is set to report its GDP for the second quarter, along with other data such as industrial production and retail sales.

Growth is expected to grow 1% compared with the same period a year ago, according to a Reuters poll of analysts. That would be the weakest GDP print since the first quarter of 2020 when the Covid pandemic first hit.

Industrial production is expected to grow 4.1%, while retail sales looks to be flat, Reuters polls said.

Separately in China, bank and real estate stocks were hit Thursday as homebuyers boycott mortgage payments for unfinished property projects.

The South China Morning Post reported late Thursday that the boycott has grown, with buyers of more than 230 properties in 86 cities not making mortgage payments.

Alibaba’s U.S.-listed shares dropped more than 4% overnight after the Wall Street Journal reported that the company’s executives were summoned by authorities investigating theft of police data.

U.S. stock indexes slipped Thursday after bank earnings disappointed.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.46%, or 142.62 points, to 30,630.17, while the S&P 500 dipped 0.3% to 3,790.38. The Nasdaq Composite inched 0.03% higher to finish at 11,251.19.

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers, was last at 108.584.