Asian stocks climbed along with U.S. and European equity futures and the yen retreated after a number of countries reported the fewest deaths from the coronavirus since March. Crude oil fell.
Futures on the S&P 500 edged higher after the index gained on Friday even in the wake of a historic surge in American unemployment. The largest advances in Asia Pacific region came in Japan and Hong Kong, with Seoul and Shanghai also seeing gains though volumes were down across the board. France, Italy and the U.K. all reported the fewest deaths since March, though South Korea warned of the risk of a second wave of infections. Treasuries ticked lower.
As governments around the world give more details on how economies will gradually restart, equities have continued to grind higher from their March lows. That has led some investors to question the gains as they mulled the prospects for a swift recovery in earnings and economic growth.
U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson stressed there would be no immediate end to the lockdown as he detailed the initial steps to kick starting the economy on Sunday. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said he would on Monday release more details on how the state would begin to reopen.
“Much of the eventual improved growth and virus news is already priced into markets,” said Bob Baur, chief global economist at Principal Global Investors LLC. “Because so much future growth and uptrend potential is priced in, we expect a period of relapse and consolidation through June.”
Meantime on the policy front, China’s central bank pledged “more powerful” policies to counter the economic hit, with more focus on growth and jobs. The quarterly monetary policy report didn’t repeat an earlier vow to “avoid excess liquidity flooding the economy.”
