the possibility of market volatility; RIL, Zomato, Vedanta in focus

Asian stocks made a protected start to a week packed with important US and Chinese economic data on Monday, while the Nikkei was close to the highs last seen in 1990.

Japanese stocks saw the Nikkei rise 4.3% last week as hopes for fresh stimulus from a new prime minister. Topics has already passed that peak, while the Nikkei began to hesitate early Monday.

Reports that US Democrats were considering proposals to raise taxes on corporations and the wealthy, while not brand new, could make for a cautious mood.

Adding to concerns about Beijing’s regulatory action was an FT report aimed at sabotaging Alipay, the hugely popular payments app owned by Jack Ma’s Ant Group.

China on Wednesday released a slew of data on retail sales, industrial production and urban investment that analysts fear will show a further slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan lost 0.1% after jumping on Friday. Nasdaq futures and S&P 500 futures were both up 0.3%, after taking profits last week.

Wall Street suffered its worst performance since February as doubts about the resilience of the global economic recovery hurt former reopening darlings in energy, hotels and travel.

Tuesday also highlighted US consumer prices, which are expected to push core inflation down to 4.2%, while Thursday could see another drop in retail sales as Delta scares off variant shoppers.

A severe global shortage of semiconductor chips has forced Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd and Google to postpone the launch of an affordable smartphone by two months. Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) said in a statement late Thursday that JioPhone Next, the 4G smartphone that was to go on sale on Friday, will now go on sale before Diwali. This time Diwali is on 4th November. The phone has been jointly developed by RIL’s telecom unit and Google.

Food delivery giant Zomato Ltd has dropped plans to deliver groceries for the second time in two years, citing infrastructure gaps in the highly competitive online grocery market. In a letter to its grocery partners on Friday, Zomato said, “In the past two months of operations, we have realized some important realizations. Store catalogs are very dynamic, and inventory levels change frequently. This has resulted in reduced order fulfillment, leading to a poor customer experience.”

Billionaire Anil Agarwal’s Vedanta Ltd is seeking a premium of at least USD 1 over the government-mandated price for natural gas it plans to produce from its Assam block. The firm, which has merged Rajasthan-based oil-explorer Cairn India Ltd with itself, has sought bids from users for plans to produce gas from Assam’s Hazarigaon field from March next year.

Meanwhile, higher yield drift and a general wind of risk aversion helped the dollar offset some losses last week and left its index at 92.624, down from its recent low of 91.941.

The euro is back at $1.1810, from September’s top of $1.1908, and risks breaking below support at $1.1800. The dollar remains sidelined at 109.87 on the yen, after being trapped in a short range of 109.40-100.46 throughout the month.

Gold also had trouble breaking higher after falling 2.1% last week and was at $1,786 an ounce, when it repeatedly failed to clear resistance above $1,1830.

There was a slight strengthening in oil prices on Monday, supported by increasing signs of supply tightness in the United States as a result of Hurricane Ida.

Brent rose 44 cents to $73.36 a barrel, while US crude rose 47 cents to $70.19.

(Reuters contributed to the story)