On Wednesday morning (8 October, 9:30 AM, GMT+7, Bangkok time), most indices in Asia Pacific exhibited a downward trend, tracking losses on Wall Street.
The World Bank has revised its outlook for China’s economic growth in 2025, upgrading its forecast to 4.8% from the 4% projected in April. This latest projection brings the estimate in line with Beijing’s official GDP growth target of around 5% and comes amid a broader positive adjustment for East Asia and the Pacific, following a turbulent period for global trade driven by U.S. tariff actions.
Globally, economic prospects remain subdued. In June, citing persistent trade uncertainty, the World Bank lowered its global growth outlook for 2025 to 2.3%—the slowest pace outside of global recessions since the 2008 financial crisis.
The Reserve Bank of New Zealand lowered its key interest rate by 50 basis points to 2.5%. In a statement, the central bank explained that economic activity remained soft through mid-2025 due to domestic supply constraints in some sectors and uncertainties in global economic policy.
Later today, the Bank of Thailand is scheduled to announce its monetary policy decisions.
Meanwhile, markets in China and South Korea were closed for holidays.
Japan’s NIKKEI increased by 0.12% to 48,010.75. Australia’s ASX 200 slid by 0.1% to 8,948, and Hong Kong’s HSI declined by 1.09% to 26,665.09.
The U.S. stock markets edged down on Tuesday as the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) lost 0.2% to 46,602.98. NASDAQ dropped by 0.67% to 22,788.36, and S&P 500 decreased by 0.38% to 6,714.59. VIX jumped by 5.31% to 17.24.
As for commodities, oil prices remained largely unchanged on Tuesday as investors considered the decision of OPEC+ to raise output by 137,000 barrels per day in November, a smaller increase than anticipated. Analysts at ING noted the group’s cautious approach, citing forecasts for excess supply later this year and next. Brent crude ended 2 cents lower or 0.03% to $65.45 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate inched up 4 cents or 0.06% to $61.73.
This morning, Brent futures rose 51 cents, or 0.78%, to $65.96 a barrel, and the WTI grew 54 cents, or 0.87%, to $62.27 per barrel.
Meanwhile, gold futures gained 0.54% to $4,026 per Troy ounce.
