Investing.com - Asian shares were mixed in on Monday with a slight downward revision to China's GDP pace last year and solid surveys on jobs and construction in Australia noted.
Markets in the U.S. and Canada are closed on Monday.
China's National Bureau of Statistics on Monday said it has revised down the 2014 GDP growth rate to 7.3% from the previously announced 7.4%.
The downward revision mainly came from the service industry, whose growth was lowered to 7.8% growth from the previously announced 8.1%. Beijing is counting on service industry development to compensate for the slowdown in secondary industry.
The Nikkei 225 rose 1.00%, while the S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.41% and the Shanghai Composite ended the morning session up 0.87% to 3187.82. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index was flat before lunch.
Earlier, in Australia the AIG construction index surprisingly jumped to 53.8 into expansion in August from a previous reading of 47.1 in contraction, and ANZ job ads also jumped in Australia, up 1% month-on-month for August from a 0.4% decline in July.
Overnight, U.S. stocks fell sharply on Friday as an inconclusive August jobs report provided investors with two more weeks of uncertainty before the Federal Reserve decides whether it will raise short-term interest rates later this month.
A strong jobs figure in Friday's report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics may have convinced the Federal Open Market Committee that conditions were ripe for its first interest rate hike since 2006. But U.S. non-farm payrolls for August only ticked up by 173,000, far below consensus estimates of a 223,000 gain. Still, a September rate hike likely remains on the table after the U.S. employment rate fell to 5.1%, its lowest level since April, 2008.
The possibility of an imminent rate hike pushed stocks lower, as the major indices erased most of the gains from its previous two sessions. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 272.38 or 1.66% to 16,102.38, ending the week lower while the NASDAQ Composite index lost 49.58 or 1.05%, closing lower for the fourth time in five sessions. All three major indices remained in negative territory for the year.
The S&P 500 Composite index, meanwhile, dipped 29.91 or 1.53% to 1,921.22, as all 10 sectors closed in the red. Stocks in the Basic Materials, Financials and Energy industries lagged, each closing by at least 1.75% on the session.