Asian stocks were set to climb on Wednesday after another late Wall Street surge in response to upbeat trial results for a COVID-19 treatment and data showing U.S. consumers spent big in May.
The upbeat sentiment weighed of U.S. Treasuries and supported demand for lower-rated southern European debt. Not everyone was in the mood for risk, however, with safe-have gold pushed higher on news of a fresh coronavirus outbreak in China. Also cheering investors were trial results showing dexamethasone, a cheap and widely used steroid, reduced death rates by about one-third among the most severely ill COVID-19 patients.