Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in the early deals on Monday, as disappointing US jobs data released on Friday showed that the US economy created the fewest number of jobs in more than five years in May. While the data raised doubts whether the Federal Reserve will be able to raise interest rates at its meeting later this month, it also weakened the US dollar and boosted commodity prices as well as regional currencies. The US Labor Department said Friday that non-farm payroll employment edged up by just 38,000 jobs in May, compared to economist estimates for an increase of about 158,000 jobs. The much weaker than expected job growth in May reflected the smallest increase in employment since September of 2010. Meanwhile, Japan's Nikkei share average stumbled to a near one-month low as the dollar fell sharply against the yen on disappointing US jobs data, weighing on exporter stocks. Among the other Asian markets, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Taiwan are also in negative territory. Bucking the trend, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia are higher. The South Korea market is closed for the Memorial Day.
Nikkei 225 dipped 167.80 points or 1.01% to 16,474.43, Hang Seng slipped 33.52 points or 0.16% to 20,913.72, Taiwan Weighted dropped 2.80 points or 0.03% to 8,588.77, and Shanghai Composite was down by 1.29 points or 0.04% to 2,937.39.
On the flip side, Straits Times added 16.45 points or 0.59% to 2,825.68, FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI surged 8.74 points or 0.53% to 1,645.20, and Jakarta Composite was up by 24.00 points or 0.49% to 4,877.92.
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