By Chong Koh Ping 

Global stocks fell slightly Wednesday after a roller-coaster trading session in the U.S. amid expectations that the coronavirus pandemic could be stabilizing.

By late morning in Hong Kong, stock benchmarks in Australia, Hong Kong and Shanghai had fallen less 0.7%, while Tokyo's Nikkei 225 had inched up about 0.5%. S&P 500 futures were up 0.2%.

"The markets are trading to the infection curve in the U.S.," said Kelvin Tay, regional chief investment officer at UBS Global Wealth Management in Singapore. Investors are watching closely for when infections peak and start to decline, he said, and when shutdowns are lifted. In time, he said, investor focus would shift to 2021 corporate earnings, and how quickly economic activity can recover.

On Tuesday, the total death toll in the U.S. from the new coronavirus rose sharply to more than 12,800, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Confirmed infections in the U.S. were more than double that of any other nation, exceeding 398,000, with recoveries at 22,083. Globally, the number of confirmed cases rose to more than 1.4 million, while deaths topped 82,000, according to the Johns Hopkins data.

Mr. Tay said that since the U.S. Federal Reserve last month made use of a range of tools--adopting "the entire playbook" it developed during the 2008 global financial crisis--in quick succession, market functioning has improved: "The markets have exited the panic-selling mode."

As well as slashing interest rates, the central bank announced other aggressive measures in March, pledging to buy government bonds, corporate-bond funds and municipal debt. It has boosted the short-term cash markets and even arranged to lend directly to companies.The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note held steady at 0.715%. Bond yields fall as prices rise. Brent crude, the global gauge of crude-oil prices, rose 2.6% to $32.69.

On Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipped 0.1% and the S&P 500 lost 0.2%. During the session, however, the Dow gained and lost more than 4%, its steepest intraday reversal in more than a decade.

Write to Chong Koh Ping at chong.kohping@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 07, 2020 23:41 ET (03:41 GMT)