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Asian Shares Mixed In Thin Holiday Trade

asianmarket 021219 25dec22 lt

Asian stocks were mixed on Monday as investors watched the COVID situation in China. Markets in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong remain closed for holidays.

China's Shanghai Composite index was up 0.4 percent as China reported no COVID deaths on the mainland for the five days through Saturday despite a record surge of cases nationwide.

China will no longer publish daily figures for COVID-19 cases and deaths, the National Health Commission (NHC) said on Sunday, ending a practice that began in early 2020.

Seoul stocks declined, with the Kospi average down 0.3 percent. Japan's Nikkei average was up 0.4 percent as higher oil prices boosted resource stocks.

U.S. stocks eked out modest gains on Friday after data showed consumer spending and inflation slowed in November but not enough to discourage the Federal Reserve from driving interest rates to higher levels next year.

The Dow rose half a percent, the S&P 500 gained 0.6 percent and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite edged up 0.2 percent.

European stocks ended a choppy session on a mixed note Friday. The pan European STOXX 600 closed flat with a positive bias.

The German DAX edged up 0.2 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 finished marginally higher while France's CAC 40 index slipped 0.2 percent.

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All eyes were on the U.S. Federal Reserve this week as the bank announced its latest policy decision. Find out the signals given out by Chair Jerome Powell regarding the future path of interest rates. Some key data on the U.S. private sector economy were also released. Other main news included the flash estimates of first quarter GDP from Eurozone. Elsewhere, the Paris-based think tank OECD released its latest round of macroeconomic projections for the global economy.

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