Asian Stocks Mixed in Aftermath of Overnight U.S. Rally

By Gina Lee

Investing.com – Asian stocks were mostly up on Tuesday morning, boosted by a rally overnight in the U.S. shares that saw the S&P 500 benchmark erase its losses and enter positive territory.

Down Under, the ASX 200 was up 2.28% by 10:29 PM ET (3:29 AM GMT) after soaring past the 3% mark earlier in the session

Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.68 % and South Korea’s KOSPI slid 0.21%, reversing its earlier gains.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up by 1.12%. China’s Shanghai Composite was up 0.18% while the Shenzhen Componentwas up 0.33%.

Investors were also cheered by the news that global equities regained levels last seen in February, before the COVID-19 virus started to spread outside China.

But the World Bank warned that the global economy could see its biggest contraction since World War 2 this year, as the number of global cases and deaths continue to tick upwards and some countries such as South Korea struggle to contain outbreaks of second-wave cases.

Sean Callow, senior currency strategist at Westpac Banking (NYSE:WBK) Corporation, told Bloomberg that “we are still going to have to absorb a great deal of negative economic data and corporate earnings reports” in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Reserve is expected to expand the Main Street Lending Program to lend to more companies and lessen the pressure on banks. The Fed will meet on Wednesday for its monthly meeting.

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