Asia-Pacific markets mixed as investors await China loan prime rate announcement

Asia-Pacific markets were mixed Monday as traders awaited China’s loan prime rate announcement, with focus also on Japan’s general election at the end of this week.

China’s central bank is expected to cut the one-year and five-year LPRs by 20 basis points, according to a note by ING and echoing the statement made by People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng on Friday.

ING also noted that the PBOC is likely to release its rate decision for the medium term lending facility on Friday, although it is expected to be left unchanged at 2% after being reduced by 30 basis points last month.

“Data aside, it is worth monitoring if there are potential further government ministry briefings or a potential announcement of the timing for the National People’s Congress meeting in the week ahead, as stimulus rollout remains a major theme for markets,” ING said.

Other key economic data this week will include October inflation figures for Japan’s capital city of Tokyo, as well as advance third-quarter GDP figures from South Korea.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 was marginally down, while the broad based Topix was 0.11% lower.

South Korea’s Kospi climbed 0.22% and the small cap Kosdaq was marginally down.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 started the day up 0.64%.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 20,782, pointing to a weaker open compared to the HSI’s close of 20,804.11.

In the U.S., both the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average surged to record highs Friday, sealing six straight weeks of gains.

The broad market benchmark advanced 0.40% to close at 5,864.67, while the blue-chip Dow gained 36.86 points, or 0.09%, to end at 43,275.91.

The Nasdaq Composite, led by a postearnings jump in Netflix, ended the day up 0.63% at 18,489.55.

— CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han and Alex Harring contributed to this report.