Asia markets set for mixed open ahead of Christmas weekend, Japan inflation and BOJ minutes on tap

Asia-Pacific markets were set to rise heading into the Christmas weekend, with Japan reporting its November inflation numbers and its central releasing minutes of the October monetary policy meeting.

Japan’s headline inflation rate slowed to 2.8%, down from 3.3% in October, the slowest pace of inflation since July 2022.

Core inflation — which strips out prices of fresh food — came in at 2.5%, in line with expectations of a Reuters poll of economists and lower than October’s figure of 2.9%.

In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.19%, reversing early losses at the start of the trading session.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 is set to rebound, with the futures contract in Chicago at 33,265 and its counterpart in Osaka at 33,250 against the index’s last close of 33,140.

Futures for Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index stood at 16,683, pointing to a weaker open compared with the HSI’s close of 16,621.13.

Overnight in the U.S., all three major indexes rebounded, with the S&P 500 gaining 1.03% to recover from its worst day since September as the year-end rally resumed.

That places the broad market index about 1% from its closing high and 1.5% from its intraday record.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.87%, while the Nasdaq Composite advanced 1.26% to 14,963.87.

— CNBC’s Sarah Min and Alex Harring contributed to this report