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People crossing street in Tokyo's busy Akihabara downtown area
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Asia-Pacific markets started Friday lower, with investors assessing November inflation numbers from Japan's capital of Tokyo and industrial production figures from South Korea.
The headline inflation rate in Tokyo came in at 2.6%, a rebound from the 1.8% seen in October.
Core inflation, which excludes costs of fresh food, rose to 2.2% compared with Reuters poll expectations of 2.1%.
Tokyo's inflation numbers are widely considered to be an indicator of nationwide trends.
Separately, South Korea's industrial production saw a 2.3% increase year on year in October, marking a reversal from the 1.3% fall in September.
South Korea's Kospi led losses in the region, down 1.38%, while the small-cap Kosdaq was over 1% lower.
Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.72% after the inflation data release, while the broad-based Topix was 0.50% lower.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 fell 0.52%.
Futures for Hong Kong's Hang Seng index stood at 19,455, pointing to a stronger open compared to the HSI's close of 19,366.96.
U.S. markets were closed for Thanksgiving on Thursday, and will be open only for a half day on Friday.
— CNBC's Lisa Kailai Han and Jesse Pound contributed to this report.
India competition watchdog to investigate Google's gaming app policy
India's competition watchdog on Thursday ordered a probe into Google's restrictive policies for real-money games on its platform, following a complaint by online gaming platform WinZO that called it discriminatory.
The move compounds Google's regulatory headaches in India, where it has already been hit with at least two penalties for abusing its dominant position in the Android operating system market.
Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment made after working hours in India and with the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States.
WinZO, which offers real-money games, first approached the Competition Commission of India in 2022, after a change in the U.S. company's gaming app policy continued to exclude WinZO from Google's Play Store, even as it accepted some of its competitors.
— Reuters
CNBC Pro: 7 stocks to buy before the year-end, according to the pros
As investors prepare their portfolios for 2025, Wall Street's finest have identified several European companies they believe offer significant growth potential despite market uncertainties.
Moran Stanley downgraded European equities to neutral earlier this year. Yet, they suggest "Europe is a stock picker's market" now since equities on the continent have begun to diverge from each other in terms of performance.
Meanwhile, investment firm Bernstein's top 10 picks outperformed the MSCI Europe Small index by 5 percentage points since the end of October.
CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Ganesh Rao
How to 'tariff-hedge' your European portfolio, according to TS Lombard
As Europe faces the prospect of tariffs on its exports to the United States, TS Lombard has advised investors in the region on how to "tariff-hedge" their portfolios.
In a note this week, Davide Oneglia, director of European and global macro at TS Lombard, advised European investors to address their "tariff risk" by looking at their exposure "in the way Donald Trump ... does, i.e. in terms of the USD value of the U.S. deficit/surplus in goods by country and sector."
He suggested three key ways investors could protect their portfolios.
Pro subscribers can read more here.
— Holly Ellyatt
English (US)