- MSCI’s Asia-Pacific equity gauge ex-Japan drops to multi-week low, Japan’s NIKKEI loses more than 2.0%.
- Taiwan’s 5.0% drop grabs the spotlight amid renewed fears of China’s coronavirus outbreak.
- Trade headlines, cautious sentiment ahead of the key data/events also contribute to the risk-off.
Asian stock markets keep bearing the burden of China’s coronavirus with the equity index from Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE) leading the declines, -5.54% to 11,445, during the pre-European session on Thursday. MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan drop to the seven-week low, -2.01% to 666.42, whereas Japan’s NIKKEI also registers 2.0% losses to 22,935 by the press time.
Further, India’s BSE SENSEX declines 0.6% to 40,963 while South Korea’s KOSPI loses 1.5% to 2,147 and Indonesia’s IDX Composite trim 0.5% to 6,084 as we head to the European session.
The renewed fears of China’s coronavirus keep the traders off from equities. Top-tier economies are preparing to take back their nationals from China while cutting airlines and scaling back businesses portray the risk aversion.
With this, the US 10-year treasury yields drop to the lowest since early-October followed the mixed performance of Wall Street backed by the Fed’s mildly bearish inaction.
It’s worth mentioning that the risk aversion has also negatively affected energy prices that result WTI’s 0.7% loss to $52.80 by the time of writing.
Investors will now keep eyes on the economic calendar as a monetary policy meeting by the Bank of England (BOE) and preliminary readings of the US Q4 GDP will keep traders busy.
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