Stocks in Asia Trade in a Mix Session, Following a Rising of Jobless Claims in the U.S.

Stocks in Asia traded in a mix session on Friday morning, following a slight decline in Wall Street after the U.S. jobless claims rose to 965,000 last week, which was higher than anticipation.

 

As of 9:17 local time in Thailand (GMT+7) on Friday, Nikkei dipped 0.26%, SSEC rose 0.14%, HSI fell 0.26%, ASX200 increased 0.32% and Kospi plunged 1.52%.

Last night, Dow Jones fell 0.22% to 30,991.52 points. S&P 500 dropped 0.38% and Nasdaq slipped 0.12%.

 

The U.S. Department of Labor report the number of first-time unemployment benefits rose to 965,000 last week, higher than the Market Consensus estimate of 795,000 with the increase in the number of first-time unemployment benefits due to an epidemic of the new coronavirus so that the lockdown measure was used to control the spread causing the business sector to close business. Also, the U.S. Department of Labor also released the import price index in Dec which increased 0.9% MoM, a continual increase.

 

Meanwhile, COVID-19 situation in Europe is still a concern after Germany extended lockdown by 8-10 weeks, even though the government has started vaccinating people in late December. However, the situation has deteriorated as the number of people infected with the Covid-19 virus has increased together with the found people infected with the new virus strain in the country can spread faster than the original species.