Asian stocks follow the footsteps of Wall Street
|- Coronavirus continues to dent the global trade sentiment following the surge in numbers from the ex-China Asian economies.
- MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan drops 0.60%.
- Global PMIs are in focus, while updates concerning the epidemic will be key to follow.
With the coronavirus spreading outside China, global risk-tone turned heavier during the Asian session on Friday. Among the latest major victims outside Bejing are Japan, South Korea and Singapore.
While portraying the same, the MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan drops 0.60% whereas Japan’s NIKKEI loses 0.12% by the press time. Further, Malaysia’s Jakarta Composite declines 0.60% with South Korea’s KOSPI losing more than 1.12% to 2,170 by the time of writing. Moving on, the Indian markets are off but Chinese benchmarks register mixed moves as Commerce Ministry of the dragon nation reiterated the readiness to counter the epidemic.
Global Times cited the US military’s step-back from South Korea, whereas Reuters said, “the International Air Transport Association (IATA) estimated losses for Asian airlines alone could amount to almost $28 billion this year, with most of that in China.”
The risk-off pushed gold further upwards to refresh seven-year highs, while USD/JPY stepped back from further advances despite mixed figures from Japanese PMI and inflation data.
The US 10-year treasury yields slipped below 1.50% while that of 30-year revisited September 2019 low. Risk aversion also negatively affected crude that was previously questioning a four-week top. It’s worth mentioning that Wall Street benchmarks registered noticeable losses by the end of their Thursday's trading session.
Looking forward, the preliminary activity numbers from the Eurozone and the US will be observed to gauge the impact of the deadly coronavirus on the global powerhouses.
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