Asian Stocks open mostly higher ahead of Powell's testimony

Asian stocks opened mixed but mostly higher on today's trading, with the Australian and the New Zealand stocks rising, as well as Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korea's Kospi, while Chinese indices were mixed and Japanese stocks fell.

We have followed the Japanese economy release of inflation data for the previous month, with Japan's annual producer price index, which showed a contraction of 0.1%, from growth by 0.6% in May, worse than expectations of slowing growth to 0.4%, while the annual reading for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) showed growth of 2.7%, unchanged from the previous reading for May, and in line with expectations.

The annual reading of the PPI for China, the world's second-largest economy, showed stability at zero, versus 0.6% in the previous reading for May, below expectations of 0.2%. Otherwise, we followed earlier this week reports saying that Washington and Beijing will conduct the next round of the trade negotiations in the United States.

Japanese stock indices witnessed a decline during today's trading session, with the broader Topix index falling by 0.35% to lose 5.49 points down to the level of 1,569.40, Nikkei 225 index also fell 0.06% to lose 13.71 points down to 21,551.44.

As for Chinese stocks, the CSI 300 index rose by 0.212% (4.72 points) to 3,797.85, while the Shanghai Composite index fell 0.02% (0.55 points) to reach 2,927.66.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.32% (89.13 points) to 28,205.41. South Korea's Kospi Index rose 0.72% (14.72 points) to 2,066.75.

To the New Zealand NZX 50 index, which rose 0.78% (81.83 points) to reach 10,619.94. On the other hand, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index gained 0.39% (26.11 points) and reached 6,691.80.