China trade data, SoftBank earnings, currencies, oil

SINGAPORE — Shares in the Asia-Pacific traded lower Monday, with SoftBank set to report earnings after the market close.
The Nikkei 225 in Japan were about flat with energy stocks gaining but real estate stocks falling, while the Topix index slipped 018%.
SoftBank shares were 1.45% higher ahead of the earnings announcement.
In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 lost 0.21%.
Shares of Oz Minerals spiked 34.91% after the company rejected BHP’s 8.34 billion Australian dollar ($5.76 billion) takeover bid.
South Korea’s Kospi declined 0.29% and the Kosdaq shed 0.41%.
Chipmaker SK Hynix slipped 2.44% on Monday after the Korea Herald reported that a South Korean city, Yeoju, wants more compensation in exchange for letting the company build pipes to transport huge amounts of water to its plant in a different city.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slid 0.76%, with the Hang Seng Tech index dipping 1.82%.
Mainland China markets were lower. The Shanghai Composite lost 0.16% and the Shenzhen Component shed 0.23%.
MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.57%.
Over the weekend, China reported trade data for July that showed dollar-denominated exports grew 18% compared to a year ago.
That’s the fastest pace of growth this year and beat analysts’ expectations for a 15% increase, Reuters reported.
China’s dollar-denominated imports increased 2.3% in July compared to the same period in 2021, lower than the expected 3.7% gain.
On Friday in the U.S., nonfarm payrolls came in at 528,000, far above expectations. Treasury yields rose strongly.
“Noise in the seasonal adjustment factor could feed into downward surprises in coming months, all else equal; but there’s no question that the U.S. labor market is extremely tight,” according to an ANZ Research note dated Monday.
“The payrolls data validated Fed speakers’ efforts in the past week to correct the market’s impression that Powell’s ‘data dependent’ take is dovish,” the note added.