(19 JUNE 2020)DAILY MARKET BRIEF 1:Consolidation as retail sales jump

<p>Asian stocks are set to close the week on a positive note, after having swung between hope of post-Covid recovery and fear of a second wave contamination this week. US equities were mostly flat on Thursday. Nasdaq led gains as investors felt more comfortable buying tech stocks, if they were to buy anything, amid record surge in new Covid-19 cases in some states in the US. Meanwhile, Donald Trump said in a tweet yesterday that ‘the US certainly does maintain a policy option, under various conditions, of a complete decoupling from China.’ His words didn’t impact the market mood, though a complete decoupling between the US and China would significantly hit the US companies, already battered by the pandemic. Also, yesterday’s data was little satisfactory. The weekly jobless claims in the US rose 1.5 million last week hinting that business reopening didn’t have a flourishing impact on jobs just yet. In Australia, the retail sales jumped by a record 16.3% m-o-m in May as consumers rushed to</p>