Asian stocks mixed on Wednesday as the company’s sad earnings reports add to pessimism about the widespread economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 index lost 1% after Fitch Ratings lowered its outlook for Japan to “negative” from “stable”.
“The coronavirus pandemic has caused a sharp economic contraction in Japan, despite the country’s early success in containing the virus,” Fitch said in announcing his decision.
Japanese automaker Nissan Motor Co. 7201,
reported a loss for the first fiscal quarter and projected to remain in the red for the second consecutive year. Other large Japanese companies, such as the Canon 7751 camera company,
and 6954 robot manufacturer,
It also reported weak results.
Overnight earnings reports also discouraged investors, lowering stocks on Wall Street. Market players await the outcome of a United States Federal Reserve policy meeting that began Tuesday. GCQ20 Gold Prices,
They moderated their strong rise, adding 0.3% to $ 1,949.70 by noon Asia time.
The Nikkei 225 NIK,
yielded 1%, while Kospi 180721 of South Korea,
added 0.1%. S & P / ASX 200 XJO from Australia,
it was flat. Hang Seng HSI from Hong Kong,
rose 0.1%, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP,
jumped 1%.
Jingyi Pan, a market strategist with IG in Singapore, said market players were also watching for Hong Kong’s second-quarter economic growth data.
The Federal Reserve began a two-day interest rate meeting on Tuesday, with an announcement scheduled for Wednesday. Investors largely expect the central bank to keep short-term rates at their record, almost below zero, but they are also looking to hear what it says about how long they can stay there.
The Fed helped launch the stock market recovery in late March after cutting interest rates and promising to buy Treasuries, corporate bonds and other debts to shore up the economy. On Tuesday, the Fed said it will extend the life of seven of the loan programs for three months to the end of the year, an acknowledgment of the severity of the recession.
Still, the sentiment on Wall Street was depressing.
The S&P 500 SPX,
It fell 0.6% to 3,218.44 after a drop in the last hour erased a small gain from earlier in the day. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA,
fell 0.8% to 26,379.28, and the Nasdaq Composite COMP,
it lost 1.3%, at 10,402.09.
This week marks the heart of the earnings reporting season for the S&P 500, and several large companies gave results that did not meet analysts’ already lowered expectations as the pandemic stole customers and increased some costs.
3M MMM,
, a maker of N95 masks and various other consumer and business products, fell 4.8% after reporting a profit for the last quarter that fell short of analyst expectations. McDonald’s MCD,
It lost 2.5% after its spring earnings fell more than two-thirds from the previous year.
Losses from large tech stocks also helped drag the market lower. The CEOs of Amazon AMZN,
Apple AAPL
, Facebook FB,
and the Google Herzegovina,
The parent company is set to testify Wednesday before a House of Representatives committee investigating Big Tech’s market dominance.
Pfizer PFE,
It was up 3.9% after reporting a profit for the last quarter that exceeded expectations, even though it decreased by almost a third from the previous year. It also raised its full-year earnings forecast after announcing the start of a late-stage trial of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine that it is developing with German partner BioNTech.
Rising coronavirus counts in many states is bringing a new wave of closings, and investors hope Democrats and Republicans can agree on more aid for the roughly 16 million Americans who receive unemployment benefits, even though the two parts still seem far away.
CL00 US Crude Oil Benchmark,
decreased slightly to $ 40.95 a barrel in e-commerce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It lost 56 cents at $ 41.04 a barrel on Tuesday. Brent BRN00,
The international standard, gained 3 cents at $ 43.64 per barrel.
The US dollar USDJPY,
It fell to 105.04 Japanese yen from 105.07 yen on Tuesday. Euro EURUSD,
They cost $ 1.1728, a little more than $ 1.1718.
.
