Asian stocks open mostly higher

Asian stocks opened mixed but  mostly higher on the week's second session as the Japanese stocks surged after its close yesterday in observance of the "Health and Sports Holiday", to draw support from the US-China interim trade agreement that was reached last week, and the Australian, New Zealand stocks, Hong Kong's Hang Seng and the South Korean Kospi index stabilized, while the Chinese stocks fell.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) revealed the minutes of its last meeting which was held on early October, during the bank's policy makers cut the benchmark interest rates by 25 basis points to its all-time low of 0.75%, after holding it during the previous meeting and after two cuts by 25 bp earlier this year.

The Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda also said that consumer inflation is moving around 0.5% and that the bank will continue expanding monetary it exceeds 2%, adding that the Japanese central bank will hold the short term and long term rates at very low levels for an extended period, at least until spring 2020.

The Chinese economy released its inflation data, which were mixed, with the annual reading of the consumer price index rising to 3.0% vs. 2.8% in August, higher than forecasts of 2.9%, while the annual PPI reading showed that contraction has widened to 1.2% in line with forecasts and August reading.

The Japanese stocks surged today, as Topix rose by 1.50% or 23.97 points to 1,619.24 points, and Nikkei 225 jumped 1.72% or 375.58 points to 22,174.45.

While the Chinese stocks fell, as the CSI 300 index fell by 0.50% or 19.60 points to 3,933.64, and the Shanghai Composite index fell by 0.60% or 18.17 points to 2,989.71.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index rose by 0.05% or 12.78 points to 26,534.63, and the South Korean Kospi gained 0.17% or 3.42 points to 2,070.82.

To New Zealand's NZX 50, which rose by 0.23% or 25.16 points to 11,051.76, and the Australian S&P/ASX 200 rose by 0.06% or 3.88 points to 6,646.40.