Asian Stocks Mostly Up on Back of Positive U.S. Data, But Curbed by Increasing COVID-19 Cases

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Investing.com – Asian stocks were mixed on Tuesday morning, with investors balancing out positive data from the U.S. with the ever-increasing number of COVID-19 cases globally.

Stocks received a boost from the U.S. reporting a reading of 57.1 for June’s Institute of Supply Management (ISM) Non-Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) on Monday. The figure exceeded analyst forecasts and indicated the U.S. services sector’s return to growth.

“Investors have recognized that as bad as the economy in the U.S. is, it’s not as bad as what people thought it would look like in March and April. The market has started to sense we might see better than anticipated results fairly broadly across a wide spread of companies,” Nancy Prial, co-chief executive officer at Essex Investment Management, told Bloomberg.

But investor risk appetite was muted by the number of global COVID-19 cases topping 11.5 million as of July 7, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

China’s Shanghai Composite was up 1.32% by 11:40 PM ET (4:40 AM GMT) and the Shenzhen Component was up 2.62%. Chinese stocks continued to build on its gains from the previous day. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up by 0.12%.

Down Under, the ASX 200 rose 0.81%, with the Reserve Bank of Australia expected to hold the interest rate at 0.25% and keep its policy unchanged during its board meeting later in the day.

“The RBA this afternoon can confidently expected to be on hold as it continues to assess the outlook, where even in its best-case upside scenario, full economic recovery will take years,” Ray Attrill, head of foreign exchange strategy at National Australia Bank (OTC:NABZY), said in a note.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 fell 0.46% and South Korea’s KOSPI slid 0.19%.