Lujiazui Business Districk in Pudong, Shanghai, China.
Liqun Liu | Construction Photography | Hulton Archive | Getty Images
Asia-Pacific markets were poised for modest gains on the holiday-shortened and final trading day of the year.
Markets in Hong Kong and Australia will close early for the holidays, while Japan and South Korea are shut for the day.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded flat.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures were at 25,880, slightly higher than the HSI’s last close of 25,854.6.
The MSCI All Country World Index, which measures the performance of over 2,500 large and mid-cap equities from developed and emerging markets, has climbed over 21% since the start of the year, hitting a record high of 1,024.29 on Dec. 26, data from LSEG showed.
U.S. equity futures were flat in early Asian hours.
Overnight in the U.S., the S&P 500 fell modestly, notching a third consecutive losing session. The broad market index lost 0.14% and closed at 6,896.24, while the Nasdaq Composite slipped 0.24% and settled at 23,419.08. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.20%, and ended at 48,367.06.
The three major averages have slumped to start the week, dragged down by losses in tech. Nvidia posted back-to-back losing sessions, as did fellow AI play Palantir Technologies.
—CNBC’s Sean Conlon and Liz Napolitano contributed to this report.
