Asian stocks were mixed as Japan's inflation rose at its fastest pace in 23 years.

Japan's consumer price index (CPI) for April more than doubled from the previous 1.6% to 3.4%.

RBS affirmed that "it's fair to say that Japan has gotten out of its deflation condition".

ETX Capital noted that "the good data reduces the pressure on the Bank of Japan (BoJ) to introduce more stimulus and even the International Monetary Fund (IMF) commented that current BoJ policy is adequate and no longer sees a need to either increase or decrease measures".

Barclays expects no further monetary easing in 2014 from the BoJ.

In other Japanese data, the jobless rate held at 3.6% in April.

Household spending in Japan fell 4.6% in April following a 7.2% increase a month earlier. Economists had pencilled in a 3.4% drop.

Japanese industrial production dipped 2.5% month-on-month in April after a 0.7% rise in March, missing estimates for a 2% decline. Year-on-year it rose 4.1% last month after a 7.4% increase, falling short of the forecast for a 4.5% increase.

Japan's Nikkei 225 finished down 0.34% as the yen strengthen to hurt exporters.

In China, the Hang Seng index was up 0.31% while the Shanghai composite fell 0.08%.

On the company front, Billionaire Li Ka-shing's Cheung Kong Group agreed to buy Envestra in a cash deal that values the Australian natural gas distributor at A$2.4bn.

Toshiba gained after Standard & Poor's removed its negative outlook on the industrial conglomerate's debt rating.

Astellas Pharma rallied as the Nikkei newspaper reported the firm will likely offer a dividend increase each year through fiscal 2018.

RD

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