By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were down on Thursday morning, retreating from a three-day rally in global stocks. A mixed U.S. session also provided little incentive for investors to increase their risk positions.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.52% by 10:13 PM ET (3:13 AM GMT) and South Korea’s KOSPI fell 1.22%.
In Australia, the ASX 200 was down 0.56%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 0.81%.
China’s Shanghai Composite was down 0.63% and the Shenzhen Component fell 1.23%.
Caution prevailed in the market, even as the recent trading frenzy driven by social media calmed down. Shares in GameStop Corp (NYSE:GME). And AMC Entertainment (NYSE:AMC) Holdings Inc., two companies that saw wild swings in their share prices, rebounded following Tuesday’s drop.
The global fight against COVID-19 also continues, with AstraZeneca PLC (LON:AZN) and the University of Oxford studying how to re-engineer their COVID-19 vaccine to be effective against the virus’ new mutations.
“The second half of this year is really dependent on the vaccine, so that’s a risk,” Harvard Kennedy School Megan Greene told Bloomberg.
“The labor market is certainly healing but there is a long way to go,” so “some of the scarring could offset some of the pent-up demand that investors are hoping for,” she added.
On a positive note, data released in the U.S. overnight showed small signs of a pickup in U.S. activity. January’s services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) was 58.3, against the 57.4 in forecasts prepared by Investing.com and December’s 57.5 figure. The ISM non-manufacturing PMI also beat expectations, coming in at 58.7 against the forecast 56.8 and December’s 57.7 reading.
Investors now await the release of the U.S. payrolls report for January, including non-farm payrolls, on Friday to evaluate the U.S. economic recovery from COVID-19 further.
Progress also continues to pass a $1.9 trillion stimulus package proposed by U.S. President Joe Biden in Congress. The Senate began debating a budget resolution for the 2021 fiscal year on Tuesday, the first step towards passing the package.
All this caused other investors to remain optimistic.
“There has been a ton of noise in the stock market these past few weeks, so it’s encouraging to see solid economic reads … there may be signs of overextension when it comes to single stocks, but under the surface there is an economy regaining serious momentum,” E*Trade Financial (NASDAQ:ETFC) Corp managing director of investment strategy Mike Loewengart told Bloomberg.
On the central bank front, the Bank of England handing down its policy decision later in the day. Although it is widely expected to keep both interest rates and quantitative easing steady, investors will look for clues on the likelihood of negative interest rates.