Asian Shares Are Down Before The European Summit

Asian Shares were underperforming on Monday morning, with oil and copper weakening and the increase of Covid-19 cases driving the markets as they awaited Eurozone and US efforts to reach fiscal stimulus plans to combat the epidemic.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.2%, erasing early gains after E-mini futures for the S&P 500 turned negative down 0.4%.

South Korean KOSPI fell 0.5%, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong fell 0.4%.

The Japanese Nikkei started the week with some strength, but fell 0.35% after data showed that the country had suffered from a drop in exports for the fourth consecutive month.

Investors are now focusing on the European Union summit, anticipating the plan to revive the economies of Eurozone, and the difference between the leaders lies in how to carve out a huge recovery fund to help Europe out of its deepest recession since the Second World War. In response, the euro opened the Asian session down 0.2% to $ 1.1400 but soon recovered some loses to $ 1.1419.

According to statistics, more than 14M people have been infected with Covid-19 globally with the death toll reaching 602 thousand people. Covid-19 had killed more than 140,000 people in the United States with records set in California and Texas. The total number of infections in the United States has reached 3.7M, which is more than the worst affected countries combined, Brazil, India and Russia.

The dollar rose against the Japanese yen to 107.37, while the British pound fell to $ 1.2520. The Australian dollar, which is sensitive to risk, fell 0.2% at $ 0.6977.

Gold fell to 1807.6 to hover near the highest level in nine years. U.S. crude fell 24 cents to $ 40.35 a barrel, and Brent crude fell 25 cents to 42.89.