Asian stocks skid as new coronavirus cases rattle markets

Shares skidded in Asia on Thursday after a sharp retreat overnight on Wall Street as new coronavirus cases in U.S. climbed to ir highest level in two months, dimming investors' hopes for a relatively quick ecomic turnaround.

Markets in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Shanghai were closed for holidays.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 slipped 1.0% to 22,205.00 and Kospi in Seoul lost 1.8% to 2,122.54. Australia's S&P/ASX 200 sank 1.1% after its biggest airline, Qantas, anunced it plans to cut at least 6,000 jobs and keep 15,000 more workers on extended furloughs to survive coronavirus pandemic.

airline said it will slash costs by billions of dollars and raise fresh capital, while grounding 100 planes for a year or more and immediately retiring its six remaining Boeing 747 planes.

India's Sensex was outlier, gaining 0.3% to 34,982.48. Markets fell in Souast Asia, with Bangkok's SET index losing 1.7%.

Overnight, S&P 500 fell 2.6% to 3,050.33, giving back all of its gains for month. selling followed a skid in European stock indexes. It accelerated on news that New York, New Jersey and Connecticut will require visitors from nine states with high infection rates to quarantine for 14 days.

rise in new infections is stoking worries that reopenings of businesses closed earlier to fight pandemic may have to be curtailed, despite indications that ecomies are recovering from lockdowns that are being eased in U.S. and or countries.

“A huge problem for investors is that volatility is too expensive to buy right w, so y are finding it easier just to cut and run from ir stock market positions," Stephen Innes of AxiCorp said in a commentary.

On top of lingering concerns over tre tensions between U.S. and China, reports said White House is considering fresh tariffs on $3.1 billion worth of exports from France, Germany, Spain and Britain. That helped send markets tumbling on worries that such a move might spiral into ar tre war, said Jingyi Pan of IG.

“Renewed fears of COVID-19 spre and fresh tariffs reign ... in guiding market sentiment midweek as riskier assets lose favor among investors," Pan said.

Techlogy companies, which have led market higher as it bounced back from a plunge in March, accounted for biggest slice of U.S. market’s pullback. Financial, health care, communication services and industrial sector stocks also took heavy losses. Energy stocks were down most as price of oil dropped sharply.

Cruise lines, which would stand to suffer greatly if travel restrictions are extended, were among biggest losers in S&P 500. rwegian Cruise Line, Carnival and Royal Caribbean Cruises were each down more than 11%. Hotel operators also were down sharply. Wynn Resorts and MGM Resorts International were each down more than 8%. Shares in airlines slumped, too. Delta Air Lines slid 7.2%.

Dow Jones Industrial Aver lost 2.6% to 25,480. Nasdaq, which was coming off its second all-time high this week, shed 2.2% to 9,909.17. Russell 2000 index of small company stocks gave up 3.4%.

Despite shedding its gains for June, S&P 500 still is on pace for its best quarter since fourth quarter of 1998.

market has been mostly in rally mode since April as investors focused on prospects for an ecomic turnaround as bro areas of ecomy reopened. But recent surge in new infections is undercutting some of that optimism.

Coronavirus hospitalizations and caselos have hit new highs in over a half-dozen U.S. states and new cases nationwide are near ir peak level of two months ago.

While early hot spots like New York and New Jersey have seen cases steily decrease, virus is slamming south and west, with several states setting single-day records, including Arizona, California, Mississippi, Neva and Texas.

yield on 10-year Treasury te fell to 0.67% from 0.69% late Wednesday. It tends to move with investors’ expectations for ecomy and inflation.

In energy tring, benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 27 cents to $37.74 per barrel in electronic tring on New York Mercantile Exchange. It slid 5.8% to settle at $38.01 a barrel on Wednesday.

Brent crude, international standard, gave up 33 cents to $40.20 per barrel. It fell 5.4% to close at $40.31.

In currency dealings, dollar bought 107.16 Japanese yen, rising from 107.05 yen. euro slipped to $1.1248 from $1.1252.

(Im credit: AP)