People wearing surgical masks walk past a screen showing Nikkei index outside a brokerage in Tokyo February 3, 2020. — Reuters pic
Japan’s Nikkei firmed 0.1 per cent and Chinese blue chips 0.3 per cent. Caution was still evident elsewhere with E-Mini futures for the S&P 500 off 0.1 per cent and EUROSTOXX 50 futures easing 0.7 per cent. The European Union is even prepared to bar US travellers because of the surge of cases in the country, putting it in the same category as Brazil and Russia, theYet the market assumes there is a very high bar to shutting down economies again, so the impact on business activity will not be too great - at least as yet.
The better European data combined with the positive risk mood to keep the US dollar under pressure. Against a basket of major currencies it slipped back to 96.578 from a top of 97.719 at the start of the week.