Asian stocks start with mixed performance

Asian stocks opened for the fourth trading session this week, showing a mixed performance but positive in general, to follow the US in the concept, while the Chinese economy released disappointing economic data this Thursday, which reduced investors' appetite for risk, otherwise, markets are looking forward for the United Kingdom parliament vote on Brexit after yesterday's refusal of an exit without an agreement.

We have followed the Chinese economy's annual Retail Sales Index, which showed a stable growth of 8.2%, unchanged from the previous January reading, in contrast to expectations of a slowdown in growth to 8.1%, in conjunction with the annualized reading of the index Industrial production slowed to 5.3% from 5.7%, lower than expectations for a 5.5%, while unemployment readings rose to 5.3% from 4.9% in January.

Japanese stock indices rose in today's trading, with TOPIX index rising  by 0.37% to win 5.85 points to reach 1,597.92, also Japan's Nikkei index rose 0.66% to win 141.04 points to reach 21,431.28.

while the Chinese stocks were mixed, with the CSI 300 index rising 0.05% to win 1.68 points to reach 3,725.87, while Shanghai index fell 0.61% to win 18.55 points to reach 3,008.40.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index gained 0.16% 44.86 points to reach 28,852.31. The South Korean Kospi Index rose 0.01% to gain 0.11 points and reached 2,148.52.

To the NZX 50 index of New Zealand shares, which rose by 0.32% to gain 19.10 points to reach 9,406.79. On the other hand, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 index gained 0.06%, 3.42 points to reach 6,164.60.