Asia-Pacific markets opened lower on the penultimate trading day of this year, after Wall Street declined on Friday.
South Korea’s Kospi

slipped 0.3%, while the Kosdaq lost 0.41% Monday, as the country grapples with political turmoil and downbeat industrial data among other things.

South Korea witnessed its deadliest air disaster on Sunday that claimed 179 lives when a Jeju Air plane crashed into a wall at Muan International Airport, bursting into flames.

South Korea’s acting President Choi Sang-mok instructed an urgent safety inspection of the nation’s airline operation system, to be carried out once the recovery efforts for the Jeju Air crash are completed.

Shares of Jeju Air hit an all-time low Monday, according to FactSet data, and were last down 8.53%. Other Korean airlines’ stocks were volatile. Korean Air slipped 1%, budget airlines T’way Air and Jin Air fell 3.23% and 2.12%, respectively. Air Busan climbed over 13%.

South Korea’s industrial output contracted 0.7% on a monthly basis in November, greater than the 0.4% decline expected by Reuters. On an annual basis, industrial output rose 0.1%, smaller than Reuters’ expectations of a 0.4% climb. This compares to October’s reading of a 6.3% increase.

The country’s parliament on Dec. 27 voted to impeach acting President Han Duck-soo, not long after President Yoon Suk Yeol got impeached as a result of his brief martial law decree, which plunged the country into political turmoil.
Japan’s Nikkei 225

fell 0.76%, while the Topix was down 0.30%
Japan’s factory activity contracted at a slower rate in December. The au Jibun Bank Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index climbed to 49.6 in December, coming in slightly above November’s reading of 49.0 and marking the softest contraction in three months. However, the figure remained below the 50 threshold that separates expansion from contraction.

“The headline reading moved closer to neutrality amid softer reductions in both production and new order intakes,” said Usamah Bhatti at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 traded 0.4% lower.

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