Asian Stocks Down as COVID-19 Second Wave Fears Increase

By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Asian stocks were down on Tuesday morning, giving up their gains from the previous session as fears of a second wave of COVID-19 infections mount.

South Korea reported 27 new cases on May 11 as its continues to curb a new outbreak originating in nightclubs in the Itaewon area, and has postponed the reopening of schools.

Down Under, the  led the losses as it slid 1.55% by 10:17 PM ET (3:17 AM GMT) and Hong Kong’s  fell 1.42%.

China’s  was down 0.07% while the  lost 0.35%. The country’s National Bureau of Statistics said that the consumer price index for April declined 0.9%  but rose 3.3% . 

The  for April declined 3.1% year on year.

Analyst forecasts prepared by Investing.com predicted a decrease of 0.5% in the MoM CPI, a 3.7% increase in the YoY CPI and a 2.6% decrease in the PPI.

Japan’s  was down 0.15% and South Korea’s  lost 1.02%.

Meanwhile, some investors doubted the efficacy of further government stimulus packages.

“It’s hard to see equities powering further higher, “Rob Carnell, ING chief economist and head of research for Asia-Pacific at ING, told CNBC, with much of the boost that the markets had gotten attributable to the “extraordinary accommodative monetary policies and fiscal policies that governments around the world … have been throwing at their economies.”

“Surely we’ve had just about all we’re going get of those. Any further dollops of stimulus are going be fairly marginal,” he added.