Asian Stock Markets Up Despite Slump in Oil Prices

By Gina Lee

Investing.com - Asian stock markets were up on Monday morning even as oil prices continued to slump.

Oil prices experienced a more than 6% drop as OPEC+ delayed its meeting to discuss fragile oil prices. The meeting will now take place on Thursday.

Down Under, the S&P/ASX 200 led the gains as it rose 2.72% by 10:23 PM ET (3:23 AM GMT).

South Korea’s KOSPI gained 2.11% whilst Hong Kong’s Hang Seng advanced 0.89%.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 2.45%. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to declare a state of emergency by Tuesday to curb the spiking numbers of COVID-19 cases in the country. The World Health Organization said that there are 3,271 Japanese cases as of April 5.

China’s markets are closed today for a holiday.

As the number of COVID-19 cases globally tops one million, some current epicenters of the virus such as New York City, Italy, France and Spain reported falling fatalities over the weekend.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel bute it’s still a long tunnel,” Erik Nielsen, UniCredit chief economist, told Bloomberg.

Lindsey Piegza, chief economist at Stifel Nicolaus&Co, was also optimistic as she said in a Bloomberg TV interview, “We are still optimistic that the administration will be able to get this virus under control and reopen the economy by the end of April, early May. If that does occur, it’s likely that we’re able to control the downturn from a depressionary scenario into a recessionary scenario.”

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