Asia stocks set to track soft Wall Street lead amid pandemic worries

Asian stocks were set to come under pressure on Thursday as downbeat economic data pushed investors to safe havens and growing worries about falling demand sent oil prices lower.

Oil, which had rallied for a week as economies slowly reopened, dropped as much as 4per cent on Wednesday after U.S. crude stockpiles ticked up and diesel inventories swelled, offsetting OPEC-led cuts in production.Equities investors are expected on Thursday to face more of the kind of dismal economic data that chilled sentiment on Wednesday and stopped the oil rally.

Markets had been upbeat earlier in the week as governments slowly reopened their economies. But that faded on Wednesday in the face of a chilling euro zone GDP forecast and a report that U.S. private employers laid off a record 20.2 million workers in April. In currency trading, safe-havens rose on Wednesday. The yen hit a seven-week high against the dollar and a 3-1/2-peak versus the euro."Safe havens are likely to hold the upper hand as many brace for the impact of the late week jobs data," said Joe Manimbo, senior market analyst, at Western Union Business Solutions in Washington.

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