Asian equities could trade firmer after a cyclical bias as fears over the Omicron variant saw some reversion. Recent commentary points that the variant seems to be more transmissible, but questions remain over it being any more fatal and around the effectiveness of the current vaccines. Also, buy-the-dip flows of retail investors and institutions on equities supported the upside on Wall Street.
On the radar for the China participants, local shares could trade choppy after the US SEC took a step closer to delisting Chinese ADRs. The SEC will order to disclose whether Chinese’s ADRs are owned or controlled by a government entity. On the macro front, traders will be keeping a close eye on Japanese and China’s November Caixin Service and Composite PMIs to measure any economic improvement as growth for next year was capped in the last quarter. In the US, players will be watching the Nonfarm Payrolls data, which is expected to come hot and support the recent Fed chatter regarding quickening the pace of the assets purchase tapering at the December meeting. Also, traders will carefully watch how strong the labour market is that could gauge the progress towards Fed’s tests for lift-off early next year.
