Asian shares follow Wall St lower as traders mull Biden plan

Asian shares fell Friday after a worse-than-expected U.S. jobs report and a late slide in several Big Tech stocks left major indexes lower on Wall Street.

U.S. futures lost ground after President-elect Joe Biden anunced his plans to propose a $1.9 billion pack to help along a recovery from coronavirus pandemic. Biden spoke about plan after Thursday’s market close.

Biden's coronavirus plan would include $1,400 checks for individuals, on top of $600 provided in last COVID-19 bill. plan would also extend a temporary boost in unemployment benefits and a moratorium on evictions and foreclosures through September. It also provides funds for a mass vaccination campaign and a major expansion of local public health efforts.

Markets have been mostly charging higher recently amid growing optimism that rollout of coronavirus vaccines will set st for a big rebound for ecomy and corporate profits later this year. Expectations are also rising for ar round of stimulus coming for ecomy because Democrats are set to soon have control of Congress and White House.

Investors are hoping that more government stimulus can tide ecomy over until COVID-19 vaccines get daily life back toward rmal and trigger a powerful recovery later this year.

But hopes are tempered by reality that Biden may struggle to win support for massive spending, even from some Democrats, analysts say.

“To some extent, most of this optimism had been priced in, but huge figures had also invited some contemplation as to wher necessary bipartisan support will materialize for this huge sum," Jingyi Pan of IG said in a commentary. “ market appears to be playing it safe," she said.

Sentiment was also clouded by U.S. decisions to blacklist several Chinese companies. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Corp., COC, China’s third-largest national oil company and aero company Skyrizon are latest to be blacklisted or delisted from U.S. stock markets for alleged military links. President Donald Trump’s administration has been moving to raise pressure on Beijing during his last week in office.

Japan's Nikkei 225 slipped 0.6% to 28,518.65 and Hang Seng in Hong Konglost 0.3% to 28,405.72. In Australia, S&P/ASX 200 was flat at 6,715.40. South Korea's Kospi skidded 1.8% to 3,093.29, while Shanghai Composite index shed 0.6% to 3,543.64.

Thursday on Wall Street, S&P 500 fell 0.4% to 3,795.54. benchmark index was weighed down by losses in Apple, Microsoft and or huge tech companies.

Dow Jones Industrial Aver slid 0.2% to 30,991.52. Nasdaq composite edged 0.1% lower, to 13,112.64. indexes are still close to ir record highs set last week.

retreat followed ar discouraging report showing how much dam ecomy is taking as pandemic worsens. Last week, 965,000 more U.S. workers filed for unemployment benefits as businesses shutter and lay off employees. That’s up sharply from prior week’s tally of 784,000, and much worse than ecomists expected.

Smaller companies jumped more than rest of market, as y often do when investors are upgrading ir expectations for ecomy. Russell 2000 index of small-cap stocks rose 2.1% to 2,155.35.

yield on 10-year Treasury was 1.11% early Friday, down from 1.13% on Thursday but above its 1.07% level day before. 10-year yield was at 0.90% less two weeks ago, before two ruff elections in Georgia gave control of Senate to Democrats.

In or trading, U.S. benchmark crude oil gave up 29 cents to $53.28 per barrel in electronic trading on New York Mercantile Exchange. It climbed 66 cents to $53.57 on Thursday. Brent crude, international standard, lost 46 cents to $55.96 per barrel.

dollar slipped to 103.81 Japanese yen from 103.82 yen on Thursday. euro weakened to $1.2139 from $1.2155.

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AP Business writers Stan Choe, Damian J. Troise and Alex Veiga contributed.