SINGAPORE — Asia-Pacific markets are set to start the new week with a mixed trading session Monday following "a big miss" in the U.S. jobs report released Friday.
Futures contracts tied to Nikkei 225 pointed to opening gains for the Japanese benchmark index, while Australia's SPI 200 futures indicated a cautious start for the ASX 200.
The widely watched U.S. jobs report for April came in weaker than expected. The report showed U.S. employers added 266,000 net payrolls last month and the unemployment rate rose to 6.1%.
But Wall Street had only a mild reaction to the bad news. Overall, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 2.7% last week, while the S&P 500 gained 1.2%. Despite a 0.9% rally in the week's final session, the Nasdaq Composite shed 1.5% over the same period.
"A big miss for non-farm payrolls was another case of 'bad news is good news' for US equities on Friday. The 266k addition would in normal times be extremely impressive but it shocked the market that was expecting nearly four times that number," analysts from Australian bank ANZ wrote in a morning note.
On Monday, investors will be watching for a number of data releases from Australia, including retail sales for March and the first quarter, as well as the NAB business confidence survey.
Currencies and oil
The U.S. dollar fell 0.09% to 90.155 against a basket of its peers in early Monday.
Across the region, the Japanese yen changed hands at 108.49 per dollar, while the Australian dollar strengthened 0.18% against the U.S. dollar to $0.7853.
In oil markets, U.S. crude futures was 0.5% higher at $65.40 per barrel while global benchmark Brent inched up 0.5% to $68.88 per barrel.
— CNBC's Thomas Franck contributed to this report.