Asian stocks: Mixed following Fed shock rate cut amid coronavirus fears

• Asian equities fail to hold onto early-day positive trading following fresh coronavirus headlines.
• Increasing numbers from India, the US weighs over the market’s optimism after the global driver to tame COVID-19 damages.
• China PMI came in record low while Aussie GDP managed to rise, eyes on global PMIs, qualitative catalysts for now.

While trimming the early- session gains in India, China and Japan, Asian shares register mixed numbers ahead of the European traders’ arrival on Wednesday. Even so, the MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan mark 0.70% gains with Japan’s NIKKEI being 0.18% in green to 21,120 by the press time.

The US Federal Reserve surprised global markets by announcing a 0.50% emergency rate cut on Tuesday. Though, the moves were taken as a show of pessimism by the Wall Street benchmarks.

However, the risk-tone recovered during the initial Asian session following more use of fiscal stimulus to tame the negative impacts of the coronavirus. The moves were also favored by Aussie Q4 GDP that crossed market consensus to the upside.

Following that, China’s record low print of Caixin Services PMI and COVID-19 warnings from the global rating giants weigh on the share markets. Also contributing to the moves were the speedy COVID-19 infections in the US and India.

The US 10-year treasury yields remain on the back foot bear 0.971% after flashing the record low of 0.901% earlier.

Moving on, traders will keep eyes on coronavirus headlines as well as PMI numbers from the UK, Europe and the US to determine near-term market moves.