Evergrande shares plunge after Hong Kong court orders liquidation; Hang Seng gains over 1%

In Singapore, its central bank left policy unchanged as expected on Monday in its first quarterly monetary policy decision of 2024. The Monetary Authority of Singapore said it will maintain its exchange rate policy band known as the Singapore dollar nominal effective exchange rate or S$NEER.

This week’s major events will be China’s factory activity figures for January as well as Australia’s fourth-quarter inflation figures on Wednesday. This will be last set of key data before the Reserve Bank of Australia’s meeting on Feb. 5.

On Wednesday, Taiwan and Hong Kong will also release their fourth-quarter GDP numbers.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 edged 0.2% higher as traders returned after a long weekend.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 rebounded from Friday’s losses and rose 0.94%, while the broad based Topix climbed 1.26%.

South Korea’s Kospi was up 1.1%, and the small-cap Kosdaq slipped 0.17%.

On Friday in the U.S., all three major indexes ended mixed, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite declining 0.07% and 0.36%, snapping six-day winning streaks. The fall also marked a retreat for the S&P 500 from all-time closing highs.

The U.S. core personal consumption expenditures price index grew 0.2% in December compared with the previous month, and 2.9% on a yearly basis. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for respective increases of 0.2% and 3%.

Friday’s PCE print came a day after gross domestic product data revealed higher-than-expected economic growth in the fourth quarter, bolstering investors’ hopes that the economy has avoided a deep recession.

The U.S. Federal Reserve’s first rate decision of 2024 is set to be released Wednesday stateside.

— CNBC’s Pia Singh and Alex Harring contributed to this report.