Asia markets mostly rise as investors await China LPR, Japan inflation data this week

This is CNBC's live blog covering Asia-Pacific markets.

Asia-Pacific stocks mostly rose Monday as markets kickstarted what ING calls a "quiet" week for economic data from the region.

Key data this week from Asia will include China's loan prime rate, set to be released Wednesday. ING said no change is expected in China's LPR, with the one-year rate currently at 3.1% and the five-year LPR at 3.6%.

Japan will release trade data on Tuesday and October headline inflation numbers on Friday, while Australia's central bank on Tuesday will release minutes of its meeting earlier this month.

Japan's markets were the outlier in the region, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 down 0.78%, and the broad-based Topix 0.47% lower.

South Korea's Kospi rose 2.09%, leading gains in Asia, powered by the rise in heavyweight Samsung Electronics, while the small-cap Kosdaq reversed losses to climb 0.93%.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was marginally up.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was 1.38% higher, while mainland China's CSI 300 gained 0.78%.

On Friday in the U.S., all three major indexes on Wall Street declined as investors worried about the path of interest rates and sold off pharmaceutical stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.70%, while the S&P 500 slipped 1.32% and the tech heavy Nasdaq Composite fell 2.24%.

Losses in pharmaceuticals weighed on the blue-chip Dow and the S&P 500, with Amgen falling about 4.2% and Moderna sliding 7.3%.

This comes after President-elect Donald Trump said on Thursday that he planned to nominate vaccine-skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

— CNBC's Brian Evans and Alex Harring contributed to this report.

Singapore non-oil domestic exports surprise with a 4.6% drop in October

Singapore's non-oil domestic exports fell by 4.6% in October compared to the same period last year, surprising economists polled by Reuters who had estimated a 2.6% growth.

The figure also was a reversal from the revised 0.9% gain last month.

On a month-on-month basis, Singapore's NODX tumbled 7.4%, a sharper decline than the revised 0.6% fall in September and missing Reuters poll expectations of a 2.3% rise.

— Lim Hui Jie

Samsung shares climb more than 7% after surprise $7 billion buyback plan

Shares of Samsung Electronics jumped on Monday after the company unveiled a surprise plan to buy back about 10 trillion South Korean won ($7.19 billion) worth of its own stock over the next 12 months.

The South Korean tech giant's stock rose more than 7% in Seoul, after shares had already surged 7.21% on Friday, following news that the company reached a preliminary agreement with its largest workers union, which went on strike in July.

Samsung last bought back shares in November 2017, according to data maintained by LSEG.

In a regulatory filing, the company said that 3 trillion won of shares will be initially bought back in the next three months and canceled.

Read the full story here.

— Lim Hui Jie

CNBC Pro: These 2 active ETFs have outperformed the S&P 500 this year, last year and over 5 years

The stock market is about to do something rare: go up by more than 20% for the second year in a row.

Yet, despite the uncommon trend, two actively managed ETFs have outperformed the index.

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— Ganesh Rao

CNBC Pro: Morningstar names cheap stocks in a sector that 'deserves a place in everybody's portfolio'

Top Morningstar strategist David Sekera says one sector is trading at a 5% discount and is set to "do well, especially if we get into more of a reflationary environment later in 2025."

Sekara also shared his outlook for U.S. markets in the lead up to 2025.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Amala Balakrishner

Small-cap stocks pull back this week

Small-cap stocks have seen outsized losses this week, reversing course after the postelection rally.

The Russell 2000 has dropped around 4% this week, hurt in part by a slide of more than 1% on Friday. The S&P 500 has lost just 2.2% over the course of the week.

That marks a turn after the Russell 2000 jumped more than 8% last week. Small caps are seen as beneficiaries of President-elect Donald Trump's victory, as his preference of deregulation can aid tinier firms.

Despite this week's declines, the Russell 2000 is up nearly 5% in November. It is poised to finish 2024 more than 13% higher.

— Alex Harring

Health care leads weekly losses

The health-care sector lost 5.3% on the week, making it the worst-performing group in the S&P 500.

Materials and information technology were the following biggest decliners, falling 3.1% and 2.9%, respectively.

The only sectors on pace to end the week in the green were financials and energy, which were up 1.3% and 0.9%, respectively.

— Hakyung Kim

Chicago Fed's Goolsbee still sees rates on a downward path

Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee expressed confidence Friday that the central bank is on the way to achieving its economic goals and can continue to lower interest rates.

"To me, the conditions on the dual mandate side are looking pretty balanced," Goolsbee said during a CNBC "Squawk Box" interview. "So we should be thinking over the next year, year and a half, the rates need to come down."

However, Goolsbee also endorsed phrasing Thursday by Fed Chair Jerome Powell that the Fed does not need to be in "a hurry" to cut.

"Unless the conditions change, I'm still feeling good about us being on a 12- to 18-month path of getting the rates down to something like neutral," he said.

— Jeff Cox