Hong Kong stocks tumble 2% dragged by property and tech; Asia markets mixed

The Reserve Bank of Australia was considering whether to hold rates steady, or raise by 25 basis points in its July meeting, minutes have revealed.

The central bank eventually decided to leave rates unchanged, saying that monetary policy was “clearly restrictive” at the prevailing cash rate of 4.1% and that mortgage interest payments were around a record high in May.

It also acknowledged that inflation has been declining, and would help mitigate the risk of a rise in medium-term inflation expectations.

The bank said the risk that output growth could slow more than expected if rates were raised, noting there was “considerable uncertainty” around household consumption.

Read more here.

— Lim Hui Jie

Chinese property developer China Evergrande Group posted steep losses in its long overdue results for 2021 and 2022.

The company saw a total net loss of 686.2 billion yuan ($95.68 billion) for 2021, and a 125.8 billion total net loss in 2022.

For 2022, the majority of the losses were due to losses related to the return of lands, impairment losses on financial assets, and other non-operating losses, which amounted to 69.37 billion yuan.

Evergrande’s total liabilities amounted to 2.35 trillion yuan last year, 23% higher compared to 2020, while its total assets stood at 1.8 trillion yuan, 20% lower compared to two years ago.

— Lim Hui Jie

After a more-than 80% jump in bitcoin‘s price in the first half of 2023, crypto market watchers tell CNBC Pro how they expect the cryptocurrency to perform in the latter half of the year.

Carol Alexander, professor of finance at Sussex University, Standard Charterd’s Geoff Kendrick, and Antoni Trenchev, CEO of crypto lending firm Nexo reveal their forecasts.

CNBC Pro subscribers can read…