Hong Kong shares jump 4% ahead of Chinese Covid briefing

The Chinese government is unlikely to make any sudden changes to its zero Covid policy as it will lead to chaos, Professor Wang Gungwu of the National University of Singapore said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia.”

“If you change the policy suddenly, I think the damage and the consequences would be even worse – it would be really chaotic because I think the spread of Covid will be absolutely unprecedented,” Wang said.

He added that he expects Chinese leader Xi Jinping to make adjustments at more local levels to quell public dissent.

Wang said Xi didn’t want to officially admit that “the policy has been bad for quite a while,” but he also couldn’t change it immediately.

– Jihye Lee

Oil prices rose ahead of a news conference to be held by China’s State Council as investors continue to monitor developments – paring some losses seen on Monday, when it hit record lows. lowest in nearly a year.

West Texas Intermediate futures climbed 1.76% to settle at $78.59 a barrel, while Brent crude futures climbed 2.28% to settle at 85.00 $ per barrel.

However, oil markets could “misjudge news of China’s lockdown,” Rystad Energy wrote in a note.

“[The latest lockdowns’] the likely effect on China’s near-term oil demand, particularly in transportation, is likely to be minor,” the note added, citing the company’s own research on actual traffic activity in China.

Even with daily Covid cases continuing to rise, cities like Shanghai have not shown a slowdown in road traffic activity, according to Rystad Energy’s own research.

— Lee Ying Shan

Indices in China jumped more than 2% as investors closely watched developments in the national zero-Covid policy after posting losses in the previous session.

The Chinese CSI 300 index rose 2.97% during the morning session, while the Shanghai composite climbed 2.2%. The Shenzhen Component The index gained 2.172%.

Local media reported that China’s State Council will hold a press conference on Covid measures at 3 p.m. local time or 2 a.m. ET.

The country saw a drop in the number of daily infections for the first time in more than a week.

– Evelyn Cheng, Jihye Lee

Shares linked to Hong Kong-listed property developers surged after the Chinese regulator announced it would lift a ban on raising equity funds for the sector.

The China Securities Regulatory Commission announced five measures to support the real estate market, including removing a multi-year restriction on real estate developers selling shares to raise funds.

Cifi Holdings Group jumped 13.01% in the first hour of trading, country garden also increased by 13.36%, Logan Group increased by 10.23% and Longfor Group gained 9.88%.

—Jihye Lee

that of Hong Kong Hang Seng Index is on track to post its best month since April 1999, when the index gained 21.85%.

The index rose more than 3% on Tuesday morning and is up around 22% for the month of November, according to data from Refinitiv.

The HSI closed down 1.57% on Monday, the worst day of the week, when the Hang Seng lost 1.87% on November 21.

–Gina Francolla, Jihye Lee

Japan’s unemployment rate for October was flat from 2.6% in September, official data showed. This figure is slightly higher than the average expectation of 2.5% of economists polled by Reuters.

The job-to-applicant ratio, which measures active job offers per job seeker, was 1.35. This indicates that there are 135 jobs available for every 100 applicants, signaling a still tight job market in Japan.

The country’s retail sales rose 4.3% in October on an annualized basis, missing expectations of a 5% increase predicted in another Reuters poll.

The latest reading marks the first slowdown in retail sales growth seen since June of this year.

– Jihye Lee

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said Monday that the Fed is expected to continue raising its benchmark interest rate in the coming months and that the market may be underestimating the possibility that the Fed has to become more aggressive.

“We are going to have to keep raising our interest rates until 2023, and there is a risk that we will have to go even higher than [5%]“said Bullard during a Barron’s Live webinar.

Bullard made waves in financial markets earlier this month when he said Fed hikes had had “only limited effects” on inflation so far and the rate of benchmark interest may need to increase between 5% and 7%.

Bullard, who is a voting member of the FOMC, said the Fed will have to delay any rate cuts next year even if the inflation picture starts to show a steady improvement.

“I think we’ll probably have to stay there through 2023 and into 2024, given the historical behavior of PCE core inflation or Dallas Fed average inflation. They’re going to come down, I think. That’s my baseline. But they probably won’t go down as fast as the markets would like and probably the Fed would like,” Bullard said.

—Jesse Pound

It is “critical” for investors to examine valuations at this time as a recession looms and inflation looks likely to continue, said Steven Glass, managing director of Pella Funds Management.

In this environment, Glass picked a list of nine stocks that he said “seem particularly cheap given their growth prospects.”

CNBC Pro subscribers can learn more here.

—Weizhen Tan

The price of bitcoin fell on Monday after BlockFi officially announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy following the bankruptcy of FTX.

Bitcoin briefly fell to around $16,000, but has already rebounded. According to Coin Metrics, it was just 1% lower at over $16,300. Ether’s price action showed a similar bounce.

BlockFi has been in bad shape since the spring, following the explosion of the Terra project which led to the implosion of Three Arrows Capital. Around this time, the company agreed to a bailout from FTX that would help it avoid bankruptcy. Of course, FTX is now handling its own bankruptcy.

—Tanaya Machel

Many global companies have significant exposure to China, including some of the world’s largest automakers, which generate between 20% and 40% of their global sales in the country, according to Goldman Sachs.

In a note to clients on Nov. 22 – ahead of the latest protests – the investment bank mapped the global auto industry’s exposure to Chinese consumers.

CNBC Pro subscribers can learn more here.

—Ganesh Rao

After a winning Thanksgiving week, all three major indexes ended lower on Monday as investors sold off amid growing concerns over supply chain disruptions amid Covid-related protests in China.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.45%, or 497.57 points, and closed at 33,849.46. The S&P500 also lost 1.54% to end at 3,963.94. The Nasdaq Compound slid 1.58% and ended at 11,049.50.

—Alex Harring