HONG KONG – Many Asia shares slipped on Tuesday.
MSCI's gauge of Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan was down 0.34 percent at 0213 GMT, widening morning losses.
Gross domestic product (GDP) had been forecast to expand 1.8 percent from a year earlier, according to a Reuters poll of analysts, slowing from 3.9 percent in the third quarter.
Growth for 2022 was at 3.0 percent, the data showed, far below the official target of about 5.5 percent. Excluding the 2.2 percent expansion after COVID first hit in 2020, it was the worst showing in nearly half a century.
Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.35 percent as the Bank of Japan kicked off its two-day meeting. BOJ is under pressure to change its interest rate policy as soon as Wednesday, after the central bank's attempt to buy itself breathing room backfired, emboldening bond investors to test its resolve.
The dollar drifted off multi-month lows on Tuesday, while the yen was perched near seven-month highs as investors held their breath for BOJ's potential policy shift.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 was steady on Tuesday morning, down just 0.01 percent at 0128 GMT, after hitting a seven-month high on Monday.
European shares reached a near nine-month high on Monday, with the pan-European STOXX 600 closing up 0.5 percent at 454.6 – its highest level since April 2022 – as global equities continued to build on a new year rally spurred by hopes of a rebound in China's economy and an easing of prices pressures in the United States and Europe.
US markets were closed on Monday for a public holiday.
"At the centre of the early 2023 financial market debate is how quickly inflation will fade, and whether or not major economies will be able to avoid hard landings," ANZ analysts wrote in a research report on Tuesday.
"The drop in inflation in the US is encouraging, although the fly in the ointment is that this drop is largely coming from energy and goods prices," the report said.
"Services inflation continues to increase on an annual basis in the US and will likely remain strong so long as the supply-demand mismatch in the labor market persists," it added.
Two-thirds of private and public sector chief economists surveyed by the World Economic Forum in Davos expected a global recession this year, with some 18 percent considering it "extremely likely" – more than twice as many as in the previous survey conducted in September 2022.
US crude fell 1.35 percent to $78.78 a barrel while Brent was down 0.41 percent at $84.11 a barrel, although the prices were still near their highest levels this month as easing COVID restrictions in China raised hopes of a demand recovery in the world's top crude importer.
Spot gold was down 0.15 percent at $1915.18 per ounce.