Asian stocks pay a little heed to Japan’s NIKKEI amid coronavirus bloodbath

• Asian equities witness the burden of fresh lockdowns, escalated risk-off.
• BOJ’s bond-buying seems to help NIKKEI, shares in India recently tested “limit down”.
• RBNZ, the New Zealand government took stricter measures, Trump administration’s COVID-19 Bill fails to cross the Senate.

With the rising numbers of Airline cancellations and countrywide lockdowns, shares in Asia nosedive during the pre-European session on Monday. In doing so, the equity traders paid a little heed to Japan’s NIKKEI that benefited from the BOJ’s extensive easing measures.

That said, MSCI’s index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan drops 4.75% while Japan’s equity gauge registers near 2.0% gains by the press time.

The Indian indices, namely BSE SENSEX and NIFTY50, could be mentioned as the biggest losers, with more than 12% loss after opening from the post-“limit down” halt. On the other hand, Malaysia’s PSEi Composite could be the next to NIKKEI while being 0.70% in red by the time of writing.

Indonesia’s IDX loses 4.0% and Chinese indices are down more than 3.0%. Moreover, stocks in Australia failed to cheer the government’s second stimulus plan as the ASX 200 drops more than 5.50% whereas New Zealand’s NZX 50 also bears the burden of the broad risk aversion while making 6.6% loss to 259.70. It’s worth mentioning that the RBNZ announced multibillion dollars worth of Quantitative Easing (QE) during the late-Sunday. Further, the New Zealand government ordered to close all non-essential businesses.

During early Asia, the risk-tone paid attention to news that the US President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 Bill couldn’t clear the Senate in first attempt as well as the Fed policymakers’ fear of recession and magnified Unemployment Rate.

While portraying the risk-off the US 10-year treasury yields drop 12 basis points (bps) to 0.813% by the press time. During the early-day, the US stock futures hit the “limit down” amid fresh risk aversion.