Asian stocks remain subdued amid Brexit, trade worries

Asian stocks seesawed on Friday responding to Thursday’s upbeat data from the US, latest optimism surrounding Brexit and doubts over the US-China trade deal. Buyers followed Wall street gains lead by technology leaders like Apple but sellers doubted the trade peace between the world’s two largest economies.

Reuters reported that the MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.3% during early Friday with Japan’s Nikkie losing 0.2% as Tokyo re-opened after a day’s holiday.

S&P 500 and Nasdaq both hit five-month high whereas India’s BSE Sensex is up 0.5% with Shanghai Composite index and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng losing nearly 0.8% and 0.5% respectively.

Philadelphia Fed Manufacturing survey for March and weekly initial jobless claims were the headline figures that pleased bulls recently while a report that the EU is ready for unconditional Brexit deadline extension till April 12 and then to May 22 boosted sentiment further. On the other hand, China’s announcement of temporary anti-dumping duties on certain products of the EU, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea damaged the optimism. Increasing the doubts were Japan’s lesser than expected Flash manufacturing PMI and the CNBC’s report that the US President wants China to double or triple goods imports.

Moving forward, PMI numbers from the EU and the US would join Canadian retail sales and CPI in order to offer active trading day.