Asian stocks follow Wall Street as risk aversion regains market attention

• Worries concerning trade/politics follow Wall Street losses to weaken the Asian shares.
• Lack of data highlights qualitative catalysts for fresh impulse.

With the early-day trade/political jitters following pessimism spread through Wall Street close, Asian shares remain on a back foot before the European traders arrive on Thursday.

Not only sluggish housing market data from the US but weak results from trade-related CSX Corporation and the Federal Reserve’s Beige Book also stoked fears emanating from the US-China trade standoff.

As a result, all the three major US indices registered a negative daily closing wherein the S&P 500 was a frontrunner with -0.65% loss.

Not only US-China trade stalemate but an unexpected rate cut by the Bank of Korea, citing fears of trade tussle with Japan, also favored the market’s risk-off mood.

The macro risk gauge, 10-year treasury yield of the US, dropped 8 basis points (bps) on Wednesday while losing close to 2 bps at the time of writing.

Following the momentum, the MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares ex-Japan eases close to 0.3% by the press time whereas Japan’s Nikkei is -1.81% in red while writing. Further, South Korea’s Kospi Composite is down -0.38% while China’s Hang Seng trims nearly 0.5%. Moving on, Australia’s ASX200 is losing -0.38% on the back of sluggish employment data whereas India’s BSE Sensex also drops around 0.2%.

Looking forward, UK Retail Sales and political drama at the House of Commons, coupled with the trade/political news concerning the US, could offer fresh impulse to traders.