Asian Stock Market: Tracks Wall Street’s mixed performance amid a quiet session

• Asian equities pare recent gains as inflation, stimulus concerns battle trade/geopolitical tensions.
• US inflation expectations drop to six-week low, stock futures print mild gains.
• Sino-American tussles escalate, Brexit, covid add filters to the market sentiment.
• Japan GDP improves, Aussie NAB data portrays skepticism.

Asian shares struggle for a clear direction, mildly offered, ahead of Tuesday’s European session as the market players brace for Thursday’s key global events, namely the US Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the ECB.

It should, however, be noted that the sustained weakness in the US inflation expectations and talks over the US President Joe Biden’s infrastructure and spending plan offered mild positive gains to the regional leaders like Japan, Australia and New Zealand. Though, Chinese bourses remained red as the US report, per the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), alleges Beijing as the origin of the covid while the dragon nation moves forward for a law to retaliate US sanctions.

Amid these plays, MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan drops 0.30% whereas Japan’s Nikkei 225 rises 0.10%, backed by better-than-previous readings of Q1 GDP, by the press time.

On the same line, Australia’s ASX 200 ignores trade-negative comments from Chinese media and sluggish data at home to print 0.30% intraday gains. New Zealand’s NZX 50 followed the suit with 0.25% upside at the time of writing.

Stocks in India, South Korea and Indonesia were mildly offered while taking clues from China and the upbeat US dollar. Further, gold and crude oil print intraday losses due to their inverse correlation with the greenback.

Given the lack of major data/events, coupled with cautious sentiment ahead of Thursday, Asia-Pacific investors may portray subdued trading heading into the key data/events. It should be noted that risk headlines, mainly relating to China, covid and the Fed’s next moves, can offer intermediate direction to the market players.

Read: S&P 500 Futures refresh monthly high above 4,200 as covid, stimulus news join inflation jitters