Asian stocks fail to overcome US-China jitters amid few catalysts

• Asian equities flash losses fearing the worst of US-China tussle is yet to come.
• Media reports downplay impacts of the Hong Kong Act on the phase-one deal.
• A lack of major data/event adds to the market’s extension of the previous risk-off.

Asian stocks flash negatives with the MSCI index of Asia Pacific shares (ex-Japan) marking near 1.30% of loss by the press time of pre-European session on Friday.

The reason could be fears of the worst to come after China warned to blacklist the writers of the Hong Kong Human Rights Democracy Act. Even so, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a story citing no change in sentiment concerning the trade deal between the United States (US) and China.

Not only MSCI’s broad equity gauge but markets in Japan, India, China and Hong Kong also keep the red. Japan’s NIKKEI loses 0.5% while Chinese stocks are near a 1.0% loss. Further, Hong Kong’s HANG SENG becomes the biggest loser with -2.21% on the face of its while writing whereas Indonesia’s IDX Composite bucks the trend with a gain of 0.72%. With this, the US 10-year Treasury yields cling to 1.77% by the press time.

Moving on, Korea’s KOSPI losses 1.40% after the Bank of Korea (BOK) held monetary policy unchanged while India’s BSE SENSEX drops 0.80% as markets anticipate a 26 quarter low of Indian growth figures, up for publishing at 12:00 GMT. Additionally, Australia and New Zealand seem to have flashed mixed results on the back of early-day second-tier economic data at home.

The economic calendar has fewer catalysts, except from India, Germany and Eurozone, while the half trading session in the US could also restrict today’s market volatility.