Asia markets mixed after stronger-than-expected China data

Economists at Nomura raised their forecast for China's growth this year after data showed the economy grew faster than expected in the third quarter.

Nomura raised its year-on-year China GDP growth forecast for 2023 to 5.1% from 4.8%. It also raised fourth quarter GDP estimates to 4.7% from 4.3%.

However, Japanese investment bank warned it's still too early to call the bottom, as pent-up demand for travel may fade after the eight-day Golden Week holiday. Also, the property sector has yet to truly recover and Nomura expects a slowdown toward the end of the year or in early 2024.

"Beijing may have to step up its efforts to stabilize growth again at that time," the economists said.

Data earlier Wednesday showed China posted 4.9% growth in the third quarter, stronger than the median forecast for 4.6%. The data boosted hopes the world's second-largest economy will meet, or even exceed, Beijing's target for about 5% growth this year.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

Chinese property developer Country Garden Holdings has said it does not expect to be able to meet all of its offshore debt obligations, Reuters reported.

This comes as the grace period for a $15 million bond coupon payment expired on Wednesday, which meant that the company has likely defaulted on its offshore debt.

In a statement to Reuters, the company said that it hopes to seek a holistic solution to resolve its existing difficulties.

Last week, the developer warned that it expects it will not be able to make all of its offshore repayments, including those issued in U.S. dollar notes.

— Lim Hui Jie, Reuters

Asian chipmaker and related stocks were mostly down on Wednesday, after the U.S. announced new restrictions on exports of artificial intelligence chips to China.

Shares of chip manufacturing giant Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp slipped as much as 1.27%, while counterpart Hon Hai Precision Industry — also known as Foxconn — inched down 0.47%.

On the other hand, shares of domestic Chinese chipmaker SMIC spiked by as much as 4.62%, although it later pared gains to trade 2.43% higher. Counterpart Hua Hong Semiconductor lost 0.41%.

— Lim Hui Jie

China's retail sales rose in September, while the urban unemployment rate cooled to a near two-year low according to data from the Chinese government.

Retail sales rose 5.5% last month, against an estimated 4.9% rise according to economists polled by Reuters.

Urban unemployment stood at 5% in September, its lowest level since November 2021, down from a prior reading of 5.2% in August.

Overall, China's third-quarter economic growth was stronger than expected, boosting hopes that the world's second-largest economy will meet Beijing's annual target this year.

— Shreyashi Sanyal

China's economy grew 4.9% year-on-year in the third quarter, higher than the 4.4% expansion that was expected from economists polled by Reuters.

However, this figure was lower than the 6.3% year-on-year expansion seen in the second quarter.

Read the full story here.

— Lim Hui Jie

Chinese electric car maker BYD forecast that its third-quarter net profit will come in between 9.55 billion yuan ($1.31 billion) to 11.55 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 67% to 101.99%. For comparison, net profit for the third quarter of 2022 stood at 5.72 billion yuan.

Earnings per share for the third quarter is expected to come in between 3.29 yuan per share and 3.97 yuan per share, a sharp jump from the 1.97 yuan per share a year ago.

In a filing to the Hong Kong exchange, BYD explained that sales volume for the company's new energy vehicles "continued to reach record highs," ranking first in the world in terms of new energy vehicle sales.

For its handset components and assembly business, BYD said it continued to improve its profitability due to factors like an expansion in business scale with overseas major customers, as well as a rebound in demand from Android customers.

— Lim Hui Jie

GP1-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) drugs, originally developed as a treatment for diabetes, are shaking up some sectors — from owners of dialysis centers to bariatric surgery providers and the food industry.

But one investment advisor, Brian Krawez, president of Scharf Investments, says there are opportunities for two stocks.

"We think the selloff has been unwarranted and creates a buying opportunity," Brian Krawez, president of Scharf Investments, says of one of the stocks.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more here.

— Weizhen Tan

Ahead of the upcoming earnings season, Deutsche Bank has cut price targets on nearly 30 European stocks this week and upgraded just one to "buy."

The biggest cut to price targets was for an energy company's stock. Deutsche Bank analysts lowered their 12-month share price forecast by 36% on Oct. 16. The stock has nearly halved in value this year.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read more about the other stocks facing Deutsche Bank's axe here.

— Ganesh Rao

Popular chipmakers stocks slumped on Tuesday after the U.S. Department of Commerce said it plans to tighten its restrictions on the sale of advanced artificial intelligence chips to China.

Nvidia shares shed 7%, while Advanced Micro Devices dropped about 4%. Marvell Technology, Intel and Broadcom lost about 3% each.

The U.S. government said that the new rules aim to close loopholes that emerged following last year's curb on AI chip exports.

— Samantha Subin, Kif Leswing

Richmond Federal Reserve President Thomas Barkin said Tuesday he supported his colleagues' decision not to hike rates in September and believes the central bank can be patient from here.

"We have time to see if we have done enough, or whether there's more work to do," said Barkin, a nonvoting member this year of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, said in remarks to real estate professionals.

Speaking the same day that a Commerce Department report showing stronger-than-expected retail sales in September, he said some of the data showing robust spending and growth doesn't jibe with his on-the-ground observations that demand is slowing.

—Jeff Cox

In another sign of U.S. economic resiliency, retail sales rose 0.7%. Economists polled by Dow Jones expected a 0.3% increase. Excluding autos, sales increased by 0.6%. That was also above expectations.

— Fred Imbert

Third-quarter economic growth should be even better than expected due to a surprisingly resilient consumer, Goldman Sachs said Tuesday.

Following a retail sales report that easily topped forecasts, the Wall Street firm boosted its third-quarter GDP outlook by 0.3 percentage point to 4%, which would be the strongest growth since the fourth quarter of 2021.

The Commerce Department earlier reported in its advance estimate that sales grew by 0.7% in September, which Goldman said helped raise its domestic final sales growth outlook to 2.8% for the quarter.

—Jeff Cox