Asia shares try to rally, retail crowd catches silver bug

Asia shares try to rally, retail crowd catches silver bug

Wall Street indexes pared their losses but futures for the S&P 500 were still off 0.3%, while NASDAQ futures fell 0.4%.Dealers were also warily awaiting new developments in the headline-grabbing battle between retail investors and funds that specialise in shorting stocks.U.S. hedge funds bought and sold the most stock in more than 10 years amid wild swings in GameStop Corp, according to an analysis by Goldman Sachs Inc. Talk was that silver was the new target for the retail crowd as the metal jumped 5% to a six-month high.Yet many analysts see this entertaining episode as a sideshow compared to signs of a loss of momentum in the United States and Europe as coronavirus lockdowns bite.Indeed, two surveys from China showed factory activity slowed in January as restrictions took a toll in some regions.  Neither was the news on vaccine rollouts positive, especially given doubts about whether they will work on new COVID strains."It is these considerations, not what is happening to a video gamer retailer day to day, that has weighed on risk assets," said John Briggs, global head of strategy at NatWest Markets. "So much of the market's valuations, risk in particular, is premised on the fact we can see