Asia Markets Rise as Investors Seek Silver Linings: Live Updates

Asia markets rise as investors look for silver linings amid the pandemic.

Asian markets rose broadly if moderately on Monday on continuing hopes that the global economy will gradually emerge from the coronavirus outbreak.

Major markets were up less than 1 percent. Oil prices also rose on futures markets, while prices of the longer-term U.S. Treasury bonds fell, both signs of investor optimism. Futures markets were predicting Wall Street would open about 1 percent higher.

Investors were looking for silver linings as the world grapples with lockdowns and other restrictions. Japan released economic figures on Monday that showed the world’s No. 3 economy formally fell into recession, but Tokyo has begun easing some of its containment efforts. On Sunday, Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, suggested that a full American rebound from virus-induced lockdowns could take until the end of 2021.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index was up 0.7 percent midday. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index was up nearly 0.5 percent. Mainland China’s Shanghai Composite index was up 0.6 percent. South Korea’s Kospi was up 0.7 percent.

Japan fell into a recession for the first time since 2015, as its already weakened economy was dragged down by the coronavirus’s impact on businesses at home and abroad.

The world’s third-largest economy after the United States and China shrank by an annualized rate of 3.4 percent in the first three months of the year, the country’s government said on Monday.

That makes it the largest economy to officially enter a recession, often defined as two consecutive quarters of negative growth, in the coronavirus era. Other major economies around the world are set to follow, joining Japan as well as Germany and France in recession, as efforts to contain the outbreak ripple around the globe. The experiences of China, where the outbreak first emerged in December and January, suggest recovery will be long and difficult.

“The economy entered the coronavirus shock in a very weak position,” said Izumi Devalier, chief Japan economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, but “the real big ugly stuff is going to happen in the April, June print. It’s going to be three quarters of very negative growth.”

Apple plans to reopen several stores this week in the United States, Canada and Italy, another sign of the gradual return to business across the world.

In March, Apple closed more than 450 of its stores — nearly every location outside of China — to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The company recently started to reopen shops in South Korea, Australia and Austria.

Now Apple is planning to add another 25 stores in the United States, 12 in Canada and 10 in Italy to its list of reopenings this week. The American stores are in California, Florida, Oklahoma, Hawaii, Colorado and Washington state, though some stores in those states will remain closed. Likewise, Apple is keeping 17 stores in Canada and seven stores in Italy closed.

Apple has set limits on the number of people inside its stores and requires social distancing. Apple Store employees are checking the temperatures of their colleagues and customers at the door and requiring everyone to wear face masks. Customers who don’t have a mask are given one.

Executives of J.C. Penney received a bankruptcy judge’s approval on Saturday to spend up to $500 million while they try to save the company.

A day earlier, the 118-year-old department store chain, which was an anchor of America’s once-thriving shopping malls but is now drowning in debt, became the third major retail chain to file for bankruptcy protection this month, following J. Crew and the Neiman Marcus Group. It is the biggest corporate casualty of the coronavirus crisis so far, with more than 800 stores and nearly 85,000 employees.

Friday was no exception, and stocks were unsteady for most of the day, after new data showed how devastating the impact of the coronavirus pandemic had been to retail sales.

On Tuesday, the nation’s top expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, warned lawmakers that an overly rapid reopening of large swathes of the American economy, which had been shuttered in an effort to control the outbreak, could reignite the spread of the virus. His comments drove a sell-off in the stock market, which closed down 2 percent.

The result is an incongruous situation in which stocks have soared even as economic data has continued to show the United States is entering one of the worst recessions in its history.

It was an unusual move for Mr. Buffett, who rarely exits his investments with such abruptness. But it’s clear that the coronavirus crisis has hit his company hard. Berkshire Hathaway reported a $49.7 billion loss during the first quarter, in contrast to a $21.7 billion profit during the same period a year earlier.