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StreetAccount Summary - Asian Market Recap: Nikkei (1.31%), Hang Seng (1.34%), Shanghai Composite (0.55%) as of 03:10 ET

Dec 15 ,2025

• Synopsis:

  • Asian equities weaker Monday. Chip stock selloffs led to sharp losses in Kospi, Nikkei and Taiex. Hang Seng and Shenzhen led China market declines amid tech weakness. Australia also ended lower. India trading marginally lower. US futures edging higher at start of final full trading week of the year. European stocks opened higher. Treasury yields down 2 bp along curve while JGBs little changed. Dollar strongest against kiwi after RBNZ governor's comments, while yen firmed against all majors. Crude and gold both higher. Bitcoin strengthening.

  • Asian markets under pressure with sharp drops in tech-heavy benchmarks and chip stocks in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan as global risk appetite had been ebbing over renewed concerns about stretched AI valuations, fueling unwinding in AI-capex trade. Spillover seen in Asia after Friday's selloff in AVGO, which had its worst day since DeepSeek release in January, and ORCL on Wall Street.

  • In regional macro developments, Chinese economy lost further momentum in November with fixed-asset investments declining at record pace, retail sales growth unexpectedly slowing to record low outside of Covid pandemic and industrial production growth easing slightly. Property downturn deepened after real estate investment contracted at quicker pace and new home prices continued downward trend. Came after late Friday data showed China credit metrics largely undershot in November. In Japan, BOJ Tankan showed large firm business conditions rose to four-year high with FY25 capex plans also coming in above consensus. Front-page Nikkei article reported BOJ in final stages of preparation for a 25 bp rate hike on Friday. Reuters sources also indicated BOJ will likely retain rate hike stance while stressing pace will depend on how economy reacts to each move. RBNZ Governor Breman noted tightening of financial conditions since November meeting. Data on Friday showed pickup in India inflation in November from record low. Australia considering tougher gun laws after deadliest terror attack targeting Jews at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Sunday. Thailand said no ceasefire with Cambodia as first civilian was killed.

  • In corporate news, China Vanke (2202.HK) promised to revise bond repayment delay plan after failing to win creditor support for its initial proposal. There will be grace period of five business days before company secures funds to pay or reaches new agreement with creditors. Moore Threads (688795.CH) said it plans to invest CNY7.5B ($1.1B) of "idled funds", around 90% of IPO proceeds to purchase a few principal-guaranteed deposit products. Stocks fell sharply Monday. Korea Zinc's (010130.KS) board to vote on plan to build critical minerals smelter as part of JV with US government and other American companies. Taiwan media reported GOOG has significantly increased orders for MediaTek (2454.TT) AI accelerators.

• Digest:

  • China activity data falls short of subdued expectations:

    • November activity data were mostly disappointing. Key misses on demand metrics. Retail sales grew just 1.3% y/y -- softest on record outside of the Covid pandemic -- notably below consensus and prior month's 2.9%. Aggregate was skewed by a sharp 19.4% drop in home appliances in a long-anticipated reversal of the government trade-in program that had been the main tailwind. Autos also declined and daily necessities edged lower. Communications equipment rose sharply as the main bright spot. Fixed asset investment continued to deteriorate, falling 2.6% YTD, weaker than consensus 2.3% and follows 1.7% decline in the previous month. Manufacturing slowed to 1.9% growth from 2.7%, infrastructure contraction deepened to 1.1% from 0.1% while real estate fell a sharper 15.9% from 14.7%. Details extended steady deterioration in property sales, financing and new construction starts. Industrial production rose 4.8% y/y vs consensus 5.0% and follows 4.9% in October. Notable growth areas were industrial robots, integrated circuits and autos. Negative sectors included crude steel, smartphones, PCs and solar cells. Unemployment rate was steady at 5.1% as expected. Market attention on Q4 data has waned somewhat after Q3 GDP was seen strong enough to reach the government growth target of about 5%. Recently concluded CEWC declared 2025 economic targets will be largely achieved. Focus has shifted to forward guidance in the 2026 Government Work Report.

  • BOJ Tankan business confidence, inflation expectations remain resilient:

    • Headline large manufacturers business conditions DI edged up to 15 in December from 14 in September, matching expectations. Petroleum & coal jumped to 33 from 0 though there were few other notable movers. Closely watched autos edged down 1 pt. March outlook seen steady. Large nonmanufacturer conditions unchanged at 34 in December vs consensus 35 while outlook seen softening to 28 with all sectors projected at lower levels though goods rental & leasing and wholesale were the standouts. Small firms unusually outperformed led by manufacturers driven by autos. All-industry current conditions improved by 2 pts to 17, while outlook estimated to decline to 11. Supply-demand conditions mostly moderately positive. FY25 large firm capex projections pointed to 12.6% growth, above consensus 12.1% and follows 12.5% in September. Contrasts with typically negative seasonal revisions and levels remain well above the recent average. Pipeline dynamics also encouraging with FY sales revised slightly higher. Notably, introduction of net income showed FY projections revised up to 1.7% growth. Output gap proxies saw aggregate employment and production capacity DIs moving further toward tightness. Inflation metrics remained broadly solid -- Output/input prices edged higher, while broader inflation expectations were steady at 2.4% across all time horizons, above the BOJ's 2% target.

  • BOJ said to be in final stages of preparing for rate hike this week:

    • Front page Nikkei article Saturday reported BOJ in final stages of preparation for a 25 bp rate hike at the December 18-19 meeting. Governor Ueda and other board members said to have indicated intention to submit a rate hike proposal and expected to draw majority support from the nine-member MPC. No confirmation of any opposition within the board while government acceptance said to be broadening. Rate increase would be the first since Jan-25, taking the policy rate to 0.50% for the first time since Sep-95. MPC to make a final decision after watching for major market volatility, particularly with the meeting coming shortly after a number of key risk events -- while FOMC meeting passed without major incident, BOJ Tankan coming up today, delayed US payrolls Wednesday, as well as US/Japan CPI on the day of the meeting. Reuters sources suggested BOJ will likely retain its rate hike stance at the meeting while stressing the pace will depend on how the economy reacts to each move. Notably, board members may internally discuss proximity to neutral rates though any findings will unlikely be released until next year and will not be used as a main communication tool to provide guidance given ongoing imprecision issues. In breaking news, Bloomberg sources said BOJ will likely start selling ETFs as early as January in a process expected to take decades to complete.

  • China home price drop persists in November:

    • New home prices in China (70 cities surveyed by NBS) fell 0.4% m/m in November based on Reuters calculations of NBS data, following 0.5% drop in October. New home prices fell in 59 cities on m/m basis, fewer than 65 cities in October. Second- and third-tier cities saw narrower declines in new home prices. Prices were down 2.4% y/y, steeper than 2.2% drop in October. Prices fell in 65 cities on annual basis, more than 61 seen in prior month. Notably prices in Shanghai and Hangzhou rose 5.1% y/y and 3.0% y/y respectively while prices in other major urban areas all dipped. Bloomberg added value of resale homes fell 0.66% m/m, same pace in October. All 70 cities saw declines in resale home prices on both m/m and y/y basis. Weak data put spotlight on drawn-out China property market downturn set to enter its fifth year. Citi sees national sales to drop another 11% in value in 2026 unless liquidity improves while UBS expects prices will keep downward trend for at least two more years. Last week's CEWC readout showed policymakers pledged to stabilize market, encouraging acquisition of existing housing stock (Bloomberg). Other measures including mortgage subsidies and tax rebates were being considered too (Bloomberg).

  • RBNZ Governor Breman says financial conditions have tightened since November meeting:

    • As part of media interviews this week, RBNZ Governor Breman said financial market conditions have tightened since November decision to cut OCR by 25 bp, beyond what was implied by OCR projections. Breman's remark conveyed degree of dovishness and were interpreted as pushing back against hawkish market pricing following notable rise in New Zealand wholesale and mortgage interest rates since November meeting. Breman did reiterate that forward path implies slight chance of a cut but OCR likely to remain on hold if economic conditions evolve as expected. November OCR projections implied new terminal rate of 2.20%, only 5 bp below current OCR of 2.25%. Breman noted signs economic growth recovering and labor weakness expected to abate as economy strengthens. Remains confident inflation will decline towards 2% midpoint by mid-2026. Said policy not on preset path and MPC will assess incoming data, financial conditions, and global developments ahead of February meeting. Her remarks precede Thursday's release of New Zealand Q3 GDP, which is forecast to show growth rebounded 0.8% q/q following Q2's 0.9% contraction.

  • Notable Gainers:

    • +19.2% 031440.KS (Shinsegae Food Co.): E-Mart to launch tender offer for 1.5M Shinsegae Food shares at KRW48,120/share

    • +8.5% 3038.JP (Kobe Bussan): reports FY results; operating income ¥39.88B vs FactSet ¥39.48B

    • +4.9% 010130.KS (Korea Zinc Co.): reportedly to build smelter in US under JV with US government and companie

    • +4.5% 1952.HK (Everest Medicines): discloses multiple insider share purchases totaling more than HK$38.0M

  • Notable Decliners:

    • -5.2% 2202.HK (China Vanke): continue to seek solutions for this tranche of bonds as noteholders vote against resolutions

    • -1.6% 8604.JP (Nomura Holdings): looking for private debt asset management acquisitions

    • -1.3% 2502.JP (Asahi Group Holdings): president Atsushi Katsuki expects loss of sales of 2.5% due to cyberattack

    • -1.2% 600362.CH (Jiangxi Copper): makes revised non-binding indicative cash offer for entire issued and to be issued share capital of SolGold at 28p/sh in cash

    • -0.5% 001680.KS (Daesang): to divest 4K SK Leaveo shares to SKC for KRW40.00B

• Data:

  • Economic

    • China November

      • November industrial production +4.8% y/y vs consensus +5.0% and +4.9% in prior month

        • Retail sales +1.3% y/y vs consensus +2.9% and +2.9% in prior month

        • Fixed asset investment (YTD) (2.6%) y/y vs consensus (2.3%) and (1.7%) in prior month

        • Unemployment rate 5.1% vs consensus 5.1% and 5.1% in prior month

      • New house prices (0.4%) m/m vs (0.5%) in prior month (Reuters)

        • House prices (2.4%) y/y vs (2.2%) in prior month

    • Japan

      • December BOJ Tankan large manufacturers business conditions index 15 vs consensus 15 and 14 in September

        • March large manufacturers business conditions outlook forecast 15 vs consensus 13

      • December large non-manufacturers business conditions index 34 vs consensus 35 and 34 in September

        • March large non-manufacturers business conditions outlook forecast 28 vs consensus 28

      • December FY25 large enterprise capex projection +12.6% vs consensus 12.1% and +12.5% in September

  • Markets:

    • Nikkei: (668.44) or (1.31%) to 50168.11

    • Hang Seng: (347.91) or (1.34%) to 25628.88

    • Shanghai Composite: (21.42) or (0.55%) to 3867.92

    • Shenzhen Composite: (18.98) or (0.77%) to 2454.42

    • ASX200: (62.30) or (0.72%) to 8635.00

    • KOSPI: (76.57) or (1.84%) to 4090.59

    • SENSEX: (26.08) or (0.03%) to 85241.58

  • Currencies:

    • $-¥: (0.61) or (0.39%) to 155.2210

    • $-KRW: (2.24) or (0.15%) to 1472.2800

    • A$-$: (0.00) or (0.13%) to 0.6643

    • $-INR: +0.24 or +0.27% to 90.6649

    • $-CNY: (0.01) or (0.10%) to 7.0476