Asia markets all fall ahead of U.S. inflation data

This is CNBC Live Blog covering Asia-Pacific markets.

Investors awaited the U.S. consumer price index for July on Thursday.

Reuters polled economists who expect the inflation rate to be 3.3%. This is slightly higher than the 3% recorded in June.

Japan's

Nikkei 225

The Topix fell 0.16% and slid by 0.33%. The wholesale inflation rate in July, which is the average price that companies charge one another for goods and services, dropped to 3.6% from 4.3%.

Australia's

S&P/ASX 200

The Kosdaq and South Korea's Kospi both fell by 0.73%.

Futures for Hong Kong

Hang Seng index

The open was 19,168, indicating a lower opening compared to HSI’s last close of 19246.03.

All three major U.S. indexes fell overnight, with the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, leading the way and losing 1.17%. The

Dow Jones Industrial Average

The NASDAQ fell 0.54% while the

S&P 500

Reduce your weight by 0.7%

This report was contributed by CNBC's Sarah Min, Alex Harring and Sarah Min.

CIO: A high CPI could be a disappointment for markets

Bob Doll is the chief investment officer of Crossmark Global Investments. He says that markets expect the consumer price index to be lower than expected.

He said, "That's what we expect," when a CNBC cool reading was shown.

"Squawk in the Street."

The disappointment would be the opposite direction.

Alex Harring

Crude oil reaches 9-month high and natgas a 5 month peak -- and energy stocks go up with them

The September West Texas Intermediate crude contract reached $84.11 per barrel on Wednesday morning, its highest level since mid November 2022. October Brent, the benchmark global oil, rose to $87.19 or the highest level since mid April.

The September contract for natural gas reached $2.87 per thousand cubic foot, the highest price since early March. The U.S. will reach new highs for natgas consumption and production in 2023.

Reuters reported that the Energy Information Administration stated Tuesday.

As a result,

Energy Select Sector SPDR ETF

Early Wednesday, the stock market jumped by more than 2%.

EQT

,

Coterra

,

SLB

You can also find out more about the following:

Diamondback

.

In a report he issued early on Wednesday, Strategas Research's technical analyst Chris Verrone informed clients that SLB had recently reached a new cycle high.

APA Corp

The "breakoput list" includes.

Veronne wrote: "The persistent bid that dominated Oil shares for most of last year has transformed into a stealthy offer in recent weeks. This is also reflected by the renewed strength of Energy shares." Since the July 12th CPI print of 3.00%, Energy has led the way, outperforming the second best sector (Financials), by over 300bps.

-- Scott Schnipper, Gina Francolla, Michael Bloom

Salesforce, financial stocks drag on Dow

Salesforce

A group of financial shares were among the lowest performers in the

Dow

.

Software stocks were the worst performers, with a drop of around 3%.

Goldman Sachs

,

JPMorgan

You can also find out more about the following:

American Express

All three were down by more than 1%.

Over two-thirds (60%) of the 30 members downgraded.

Dow, Inc.

The best-performing stock was up by nearly 1%.

The index overall fell by around 0.6%.

Alex Harring

Earnings Season is shaping up better than expected

Nine out of ten people are able to do it.

S&P 500

As of Wednesday morning, companies released their financials for the quarter. Many have been surprising strong.

According to FactSet, data shows that four fifths of the companies included in the broad index which have reported so far have exceeded Wall Street analysts' average expectations.

Some big companies are yet to release their earnings reports, even though the majority of the season has passed. One example:

Disney

After the bell, expect the following:

Alex Harring