Asian stocks stay sluggish amid trade woes, Hong Kong protests

• Risk aversion continues in Asia.
• US-China trade woes, Hong Kong protests become the key catalysts.
• China’s data dump added to the market pessimism.

With no respite from Hong Kong protests and an on-going trade tussle between the United States (US) and China, Asian shares remain under pressure while heading into the European session on Thursday.

The latest roadblock on the US-China trade deal is over the US farm products, as per the Wall Street Journal. Likely adding to the pessimism is the dragon nation’s objection over the US transit in Taiwan. Elsewhere, Hong Kong protesters pushed the government toward extended suspension of schools till the weekend while disturbing the life at large.

On the economic front, China’s October month Industrial Production and Retail Sales numbers spread worries about the health of the world’s largest industrial player. Additionally, downbeat prints of Australian employment data also spread economic pessimism.

In a reaction, MSCI’s index of Asian-Pacific shares outside Japan declines by nearly 0.4% while Japan’s NIKKEI drops 0.70% by the press time. Further, stocks in China, Australia and New Zealand gain amid expectations of further monetary easing whereas Hong Kong’s HANG SENG prints -0.80% mark. Additionally, the US 10-year Treasury yields seesaw around 1.87% and the S&P 500 is nearly unchanged to 3,093 while writing.

While Gross Domestic Product (GDP) numbers for Germany and Eurozone, coupled with the British Retail Sales, will decorate the economic calendar ahead of the US session, the second day of the Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony will be the key to watch during the US trading hours.