Market and product

Asian petrochemical shares opened the week higher on Monday amid hopes of further stimulus measures while oil prices fell on lingering worries over the global supply glut.

At 03:10 GMT, Asahi Kasei was up more than 2% in Tokyo, Lotte Chemical Corp rose by close to 5% in Seoul and Taiwan's Formosa Petrochemical Corp was 0.74% higher in Taipei.

Japan's Nikkei 225 Index rose by 1.93%, South Korea's KOSPI Index was up by 1.42% and Singapore's Straits Times Index gained more than 1%.

South Korea’s finance minister Hong Nam-ki on Monday said the government will provide about $400m of “economic corporation” loans for developing nations to help them fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

"This is an encouraging piece of news and may signal more regional and international co-operation between governments in this long term fight against the Covid-19 crisis," said Singapore's UOB Global Economic & Markets Research in a note.

Most economies in Asia will start to look forward to Labor Day holiday towards the end of the week on 1 May, with the exception of India, Australia and New Zealand whose financial markets will remain open.

China will have extended Labor Day holidays from 1 to 5 May.

US-listed shares of chemical firm rose again last Friday as oil futures continued to recover, while chemical stocks fell in Europe.

US stock markets found a firmer footing after US President Trump signed the $484bn coronavirus relief package into law on 24 April.

Investors' attention will remain on developments surrounding the coronavirus pandemic this week, with the number of confirmed cases nearing 3m globally and the number of deaths approaching 200,000, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization

The US now has the most number of infections and one quarter of the reported deaths globally.

In Europe, Italy reported the lowest deaths since 14 March while the fatalities in France and Spain hit the lowest in more than a month.

These three worst hit European countries by the coronavirus set out plans to reopen their economies, as soon as early May.

"Global risk appetite may remain capped by concerns about a potential second wave of Covid-19 infections globally and the WHO warned that catching Covid-19 once may not protect from a second infection," Singapore-based OCBC Bank said.

Market attention will also stay on monetary policy announcements in Japan, US and Europe this week as well as US corporate earnings with almost 170 out of 500 S&P firms reporting.

Crude oil prices fell on Monday on fresh concerns about global oversupply after crude inventories rose again in the week to 17 April to nearly an all-time high.

A Baker Hughes report showed that US drillers cut 60 oil rigs in the week to 24 April, the sharpest weekly cut since 2015, bringing the total count down to 378, the lowest count since July 2016. - ICIS-