By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Asian stocks were mixed on Thursday morning in a somewhat volatile session, with some indexes giving up gains from earlier in the session.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 slid 0.10% by 11:30 PM ET (4:30 AM GMT), giving up its earlier gains. The Ministry of Finance reported a 21.9% slide in April exports year-on-year. The figure was slightly less than the 22.7% predicted in analyst forecasts prepared by Investing.com.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will decide whether to lift the state of emergency in Osaka, Kyoto and Hyogo later in the day. But Tokyo, Kanagawa, Chiba and Hokkaido will remain under the state of emergency
South Korea’s KOSPI gained 0.51%. Down Under the ASX 200 dropped 0.05%, also giving up its earlier gains.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was down 0.02%. It gained earlier in the session after the U.S. Senate passed a bill on Wednesday that could lead to Chinese companies that do not comply with security laws and auditing regulations being barred from listing on U.S. exchanges.
The bill’s passage raised hopes that the Hong Kong Stock Exchange stands to benefit should the bill pass the House of Representatives and be signed into law by President Donald Trump, with more Chinese companies potentially choosing to list in Hong Kong.
China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.05% and the Shenzhen Component gained 0.28%.
The National People's Congress and the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will kick off their annual meetings, with the CPPCC kicking off later in the day and the NPC following on Friday.
Investors are continuing to monitor COVID-19 developments, with the World Health Organization reporting a daily record of new cases globally this week, and Johns Hopkins University data indicating that the number of global cases is fast approaching 5 million.
Moderna (NASDAQ:MRNA)Chairman Noubar Afeyan defended the company’s data for its possible COVID-19 vaccine in the aftermath of a report concluding insufficient data to prove the vaccine’s efficacy.
Stocks got a boost earlier in the week after the U.S. drug maker reported on Monday that all 45 patients enrolled in the phase one trials developed binding antibodies after two doses.
Afeyan said that Moderna would never put out data on the vaccine that looked different from “the reality.
Investors will also continue to monitor government efforts in lockdowns and economic recovery.
The minutes of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s April 28-29 Federal Open Market Committee meeting released overnight said that the virus posed both a severe economic threat and a risk to financial stability.
“The direction of travel is adding to risk carefully here,” Ben Mandel, global strategist at JPMorgan (NYSE:JPM) Asset Management, told Bloomberg.
“We’re looking out of a fairly deep hole in terms of GDP and there’s only one way to go and the risks around the slope are fairly well understood. Policy is the incremental mover.”