The Hang Seng added 48 points or 0.2% on Monday, ending around 24,907 after a brief dip in morning trade, lifted by optimism over fresh property market support in the mainland. Beijing city announced last Friday it would remove limits on the number of homes residents can buy in suburban areas, ending the two-unit-per-household cap and sparking gains in property stocks such as Longfor Group (1.9%), China Resources Land (1.5%), and Sunac China (1.4%). Sentiment was also supported by July CPI data in China, where consumer prices beat forecasts following government subsidies for consumer goods....
Asia-Pacific markets are set for a mixed open on Friday, after Wall Street benchmarks the Nasdaq Composite and the S&P 500 posted their worst day in nearly two months on a downbeat Microsoft earnings forecast and MetaTrader results. Traders await a raft of economic data from the region, including Australia's third-quarter producer price index reading and China's Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers' index for October. Japan's Nikkei 225 appears set for a weaker open, with futures in Chicago at 38,470 and its Osaka counterpart at 38,370 against the index's last close of...