Stocks sink in Hong Kong; Tokyo and Shanghai markets closed for holidays
Shares were lower in Asia in thin trading Monday, with many markets including those in Tokyo and Shanghai closed for holidays.
The declines follow a retreat Friday on Wall Street, where the S&P 500 gave up 0.7% but still closed out its best month so far this year.
Markets have mostly climbed in recent weeks as investors remain optimistic that the pandemic is slowly and steadily coming to a close, at least in the United States. The S&P 500 rose 5.2% in April, its best monthly gain since November 2020, when President Joe Biden was elected.
In much of Asia and many other countries, caseloads have surged and vaccination levels remain low.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HK:HSI lost 1.6%, and the Kospi KR:180721 in South Korea slipped 0.1%. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 AU:XJO inched 0.1% lower, while shares fell in Singapore SG:STI and Taiwan TW:Y9999.
U.S. futures were higher, with the contracts for both the Dow industrials YM00 and the S&P 500 ES00 up 0.3%.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was steady at 1.62%.
With many markets closed there was little in the way of news to drive trading.
On Friday, the S&P 500 SPX closed at 4,181.17. The index eked out a gain of less than 0.1% for the week. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA fell 0.5% to 33,874.85 and the Nasdaq COMP lost 0.9% to 13,962.68.
Investors backed away from technology, financial and communication stocks. Despite the decline, the S&P 500 ended April with a 5.2% gain, its best month since November 2020, when President Joe Biden was elected. It logged a gain of about 28% between November and April.
Corporate earnings have helped drive recent gains. More than half of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported their results, which show earnings growth of 54% percent so far for index, according to FactSet.
Investors will get another big dose of earnings reports to start off May, including results from drugmakers Eli Lilly LLY, Merck MRK as well as Pepsi PEP, Colgate-Palmolive CL, the railroad CSX CSX and drugstore giant CVS CVS. Investors will also get April’s jobs report this week.
In other trading, benchmark U.S. crude oil CLM21 shed 14 cents to $63.44 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It gave up $1.43 on Friday to $63.58 per barrel. Brent crude BRNN21, the international standard, lost 19 cents to $66.57 per barrel.
The U.S. dollar USDJPY climbed to 109.49 Japanese yen from 109.30 yen.