By Gina Lee
Investing.com - Asian stock markets were mixed on Friday morning as they gave back some of their earlier gains on the back of a jump in oil prices.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 gained 0.32% by 10:33 PM ET (3:33 AM GMT) and neighboring South Korea’s KOSPI gained 0.48%.
Down Under, the S&P/ASX 200 lost its earlier gains to drop 0.41%.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index was up by 2.24%. China’s Shanghai Composite lost 0.14 % while the Shenzhen Component was up 0.23%.
Meanwhile, the United States announced overnight that it received a record 6.648 million jobless claims last week.
On the COVID-19 front, the World Health Organization said that there are 900,306 global cases of the COVID-19 pandemic as of April 2.
Investors are bracing for more economic turbulence.
“The U.S. labor market “has more or less collapsed in the past two weeks,” Commonwealth Bank of Australia’s Joseph Capurso said in a note.
“It is only the beginning because more US states are applying lockdowns,” and the data indicates the nonfarm payrolls report for April due later today will likely indicate a “large jump in unemployment,” he added.