Asian stocks off to shaky start after rout on Wall Street

Asian stocks were off to a shaky start on Wednesday following plunges on Wall Street fuelled by concerns for the banking sector and broader fears of recession.

Lacklustre US consumer data and mixed earnings reports fed those fears during trading hours, with US stocks in the red the entire day.

But US equities futures, particularly on the tech-heavy Nasdaq, were trading well into the green on Wednesday morning after promising earnings reports from Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet were filed after markets closed.

Stephen Innes, of SPI Asset Management, said in a note that “earnings were not universally bad and, in some cases, even good”, but he pointed to struggling shipping firms as a particular cause for concern.

In a downcast report, UPS had warned investors its full-year results would be on the “low end” due to “challenging macro conditions and changes in consumer behavior”.

Such a downturn in freight, Innes said, “is typically a precursor to a broader slowdown in economic activity”.

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