Stock market today: Live updates

China will cut the amount of liquidity that banks are required to hold as reserves from early next month.

Reserve ratio requirements for banks will be cut by 50 basis points from Feb. 5, which will provide 1 trillion yuan ($139.8 billion) in long-term capital, People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng said at a press conference.

Reducing the reserve requirements that banks must maintain will increase the capacity for lenders to extend loans and spur spending in the broader economy.

It comes as Beijing seeks to bolster growth, while deleveraging its once-bloated real estate sector, which accounts for about one-third of its economic activities.

This is the central bank’s first reduction in reserve requirements this year, after cutting RRR twice last year. The PBOC said there’s room for further monetary policy easing.

Read the full story here.

— Evelyn Cheng and Clement Tan

Japan’s exports grew 9.8% year-on-year in December, reversing from a 0.2% fall in the previous month and beating expectations of a 9.1% rise from economists polled by Reuters.

Imports to the world’s third-largest economy fell 6.8% year-on-year in December, a smaller contraction compared with November’s 11.9% decline, but steeper than the 5.3% expected from the Reuters poll.

As such, Japan’s trade balance for December stood at a $62.1 billion surplus, compared with a $780.4 billion deficit in November.

For the whole of 2023, Japan’s total exports climbed 2.8% year-on-year to 100.89 trillion yen, while imports fell 7% in the same period to 110.17 trillion yen.

— Lim Hui Jie

Australia’s factory activity expanded for the first time in 11 months, according to flash data from Juno Bank.

The country’s manufacturing purchasing managers’ index for January came in at 50.3, up from December’s figure of 47.6.

Service sector activity contracted at a slower pace, with the services PMI at 47.9 compared with December’s 47.1.

Overall, business activity in Australia also saw a slower contraction, with the composite PMI at 48.1 against 46.9 in December.

A PMI reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below 50 signals contraction.

— Lim Hui Jie

Check out the companies making headlines in extended trading.

Netflix — The streaming service jumped 8.5% after the company reported 13.1 million new subscribers, pushing its total membership count to an all-time high of 260.8 million paid subscribers. Netflix also posted a revenue beat during the fourth quarter. The company reported $2.11 earnings per share on $8.83 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by LSEG had forecasted $2.22 earnings per share on $8.72 billion in revenue. 

Texas Instruments — Shares fell 4% after the company issued weak first-quarter earnings and revenue guidance. Texas Instruments is estimating earnings per share to fall between 96 cents and $1.16, versus consensus estimates of $1.41, per LSEG. Revenue is also expected to come in lower, in a range of $3.45 billion to $3.75 billion, compared to estimates of $4.06 billion.

The full list can be found here.

— Hakyung Kim

U.S. stock futures rose Tuesday evening.

Dow Jones Industrial Average futures added 16 points, or 0.04%. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite gained 0.15% and 0.20%, respectively.

— Hakyung Kim