Asian stocks are slipping as investors are ready by the end of 2021 for Reuters

By Scott Murdoch

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Asian stocks fell on Wednesday after a mixed session on Wall Street, with investors in the region positioning their wallets for the new year and continuing to struggle with the growing global number of Omicron coronavirus cases.

MSCI Asia-Pacific equities lost 0.25% outside Japan after winning six sessions after volatile US trade.

Hong Kong was down 0.6%, while mainland technology stocks fell by 0.6%, while China’s blue chips fell 0.25%.

It fell 0.58% after reaching a one-month high on Wednesday.

But in Australia, it grew by 1% at the start of the session, even as the country’s most populous New South Wales state announced 11,201 new cases of coronavirus.

Volatile markets are common in late December as fund managers prepare to discard annual books and reduce holiday trading volumes in some large markets such as Australia.

“Typically, at this time of year, global investors are beginning to reconsider their portfolio positions and are looking at the risks for 2022,” said Jim McCafferty, joint head of APAC’s share research at Nomura.

“Inflation is rising in Europe and the US, there is more content in Asia, so people are looking to position their portfolios to ease inflation. .

The rise in Omicron cases is not as alarming as investors feared at first, as death rates have not risen and the chances of a global blockade are slim.

“Investors are moving forward and looking at the impact of returning to normalcy,” McCafferty said.

It rose 0.26% on Tuesday. He set a day record for the session, but weakened to finish the day at 0.10%. It lost 0.56%.

Reference yields were up 1.4773% on Tuesday compared to the US close of 1.481%. The two-year yield, which is growing by traders with expectations of higher Fed fund rates, touched 0.7461% after hitting 0.758% in the previous session, almost the two-year high. [US/]

This, coupled with the cautious stock sentiment, helped the strength of the dollar a bit. The greenback, which measured against six peers, was at 96.23, a low of 95.958 on Friday. [FRX/]

It rose 0.25% to $ 76.17 a barrel. rose to $ 79 a barrel.

Gold was slightly lower. It sold for $ 1,804.5631 per ounce. [GOL/]