Investing.com – Asian stocks edged lower on Monday morning, tracking declines seen on Wall Street as underwhelming earnings news overshadowed the release of solid second-quarter U.S. gross domestic product data.
Bank of Japan’s (BOJ) policy meeting on Tuesday is expected to receive some focus as traders believe the central bank could tweak its massive asset-buying campaign.
Intel (NASDAQ:INTC) shares fell on Friday after the chipmaker announced delays for next generation chips while Twitter sank after reporting a drop in monthly active users. On Thursday, Facebook (NASDAQ:FB) plunged close to 20% following a weak earnings report.
Meanwhile, U.S. second-quarter GDP grew at 4.1%, marking the quickest pace of growth since 2014, although its impact on equities seemed to be limited. The U.S. Federal Reserve is due to meet on Tuesday and Wednesday and is widely expected to reaffirm the outlook for further gradual rate rises, as the market is almost fully priced for a rate hike in September and expects a further move before the end of this year.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 declined 0.65% by 10:34 PM ET (02:34 GMT) from the previous session. Data on Monday showed the country’s retail sales rose 1.8% in June, compared with the median estimate for a 1.6% annual gain and followed a 0.6% increase in May.
Investors are likely to focus on whether the BOJ will fine tune its policy later this week.
"Our base case scenario is for the BOJ to make no policy change. But there is increasing speculation the BOJ may tweak its yield curve control settings in part because of lower bank profitability and muted inflation in Japan," Elias Haddad, senior currency strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, wrote in a note.
China’s Shanghai Composite edged up 0.14% in morning trade, while the Shenzhen Composite slipped 0.46%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was also down 0.53%.
Elsewhere, South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.06%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 eased 0.54% as most sectors barring telecommunications traded in red.