The first Asia-Pac session of the week.....>

EQUITIES: The first Asia-Pac session of the week lacked any real sense of

direction, with e-minis initially drifting lower on COVID-19 worry (both in the

U.S. and China, while global cases topped the 10 million mark), geopolitical

tensions and President Trump's latest round of political hardship. Elsewhere,

the tech space, namely Facebook, remained in the headlines, with the social

media platform seeing an exodus of advertising revenue (at least for the short

term), as corporates reacted to the outlet's dealings with some forms of public

messaging (linked to hate speech) in recent times. Weekend news flow also

revealed that certification test flights for the grounded Boeing 737 MAX that

could begin as soon Monday. E-minis had started to grind away from session lows,

with no notable news flow evident, before a firmer than expected CNY fix (albeit

somewhat marginal) injected further, limited upside impetus into the space,

which has now faded. The major local equity markets all trade lower on the day,

catching up to Friday's Wall St. session.

- Nikkei 225 -1.8%, Hang Seng -1.1%, CSI 300 -0.9%, ASX 200 -2.0%.

- S&P 500 futures unch., DJIA futures -18, NASDAQ 100 futures -23.