Asian Markets Fall Ahead Of Chinese Manufacturing Report

Asian markets are mostly lower ahead of the HSBC Flash PMI number for China. Shanghai Composite futures are down.

Meanwhile, after the rise in money market rates on Wednesday, Bloomberg cites a trader saying the People's Bank of China would skip open market operations, raising questions about whether money market rates would rise again.

Japanese stocks are down led by financial stocks and as global bellweather Caterpillar cut its outlook, sending its Japanese competitors lower.

Japan's Nikkei is down 0.9%

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 is up 0.4%

Korea's KOSPI is down 0.1%

Global stock markets were reported to have been roiled by two reports out of China. First there was news that China's biggest banks saw a surge in bad loans that had to be written off in the first half of the year. A rise in money market rates was also said to have weighed on markets. But some thought there was more to the market sell-off than the news out of China.