Asian stocks open with mixed performance

Asian stocks opened the fourth trading session in the week mixed but positive in total, as the Chinese stocks rose with Hong Kong's Hang Seng and South Korea's Kospi also rising, while the Australian and New Zealand stocks fell, with the absent of the Japanese stocks due to the celebration of the Spring Equinox Day there.

We also followed the New Zealand economy's GDP reading, which showed growth accelerated to 0.6% in line with expectations versus 0.3% in the third quarter. The annual GDP reading showed growth slowing to 2.3% from 2.6% in the previous third quarter reading , lower than expectations of slowing growth to 2.5%.

In another context, we followed the Australian economy to reveal data on the labor market, which showed a decline in unemployment to 4.9%, which is the lowest since mid-2011 compared to the previous January and expectations of 5.0%, and with the release of The change in employment index at 4.6K vs. 38.3K in January, below estimates of 14.8K.

This came hours after the Fed monetary policy makers have agreed to keep interest rates between 2.25% and 2.50% and move forward with reducing bond purchases until September as the Federal Reserve cuts its growth forecast and raises its forecast for Unemployment rates while keeping interest rates unchanged during the current year, with maintaining their forecast to raise it once in the next year 2020.

Chinese stocks rose today, with CSI 300 rising 0.26% to 10.12 points and reaching 3,845.56. The Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.57% to 17.62 points and reached 3,108.26 points.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.28% to 82.03 points to 29,403.00. South Korea's Kospi Composite Index rose 0.92%, gaining 20.13 points to 2,197.23.

To NZX 50 index of New Zealand shares, which fell by 0.13% to lose 12.27 points to reach  9,423.43, while S&P/ASX 200 index of Australian shares fell by 0.31%, losing 19.15 points to reach the level of 6,146.20.