By Gina Lee
Investing.com – Asia Pacific stocks were mostly up on Friday morning, with investors digesting the final presidential debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Joe Biden ahead of the Nov. 3 presidential election.
“It was a slightly more civilized debate this time around, but Trump failed to make up for lost ground from the first debate. Biden came through better than Trump in this debate and this should help to cement his lead over Trump and may just help him to cross the final line with a win,” OCBC Wealth Management senior strategist Vasu Menon told Reuters.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 0.43% by 11:10 PM ET (3:10 AM GMT) and South Korea’s KOSPI gained 0.50%.
In Australia, the ASX 200 inched down 0.10% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index rose 0.60%.
China’s Shanghai Composite edged up 0.20%, while the Shenzhen Component inched down 0.04%.
Some investors warned of market volatility ahead as markets in the region opened.
“There will be a positive bias to the opening tone in Asian trade,” CommSec market analyst Tom Piotrowski told Reuters.
“But regional investors won’t necessarily hang their hats on that outcome, the markets can move around quite quickly,” he added.
Other developments in Washington on investors’ radar is progress on the latest stimulus measures. Continuous, staunch Republican opposition to the measures’ price tag makes the likelihood that Congress will pass them before the election slim. However, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi continued to be optimistic that a deal can be reached soon.
Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin are “just about there” vis-a-vis a deal and are currently resolving how to allocate money for testing and tracing to safely reopen schools and the economy, a key part of the measures.
The continuing uncertainty has a big move in the bond market over expectations that a deal will materialize soon.
“The big move in the bond market has been going on for the past few days and it’s mostly because the market is expecting that one way or another there will be a stimulus package, if not before the election then after the election” Yardeni Research president and chief investment strategist Ed Yardeni told Bloomberg.
There are over 41.5 million COVID-19 cases globally as of Oct. 23, according to Johns Hopkins University data. In Europe, which is fighting a second wave, Germany recorded a record number of cases and Spanish health minister Salvador Illa warned that the spread of the virus is out of control in certain parts of his country.
Stocks received a boost, however, from the news of the first approved COVID-19 treatment, after Gilead Sciences (NASDAQ:GILD) received FDA approval on Thursday for its antiviral therapy Veklury (remdesivir) to treat the virus. The approval is for the use of remdesivir in adult and pediatric patients 12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kilograms (around 88 pounds), the FDA said.