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| - Fears of a second wave of coronavirus infections weighed on Asian equities and the dollar Tuesday, but easing lockdowns and hopes for economic recovery helped to lift European stock markets and oil prices. As some of the worst-hit countries -- including eurozone members Spain, Italy and France -- take heart from slowing COVID-19 death and infection rates, they are gradually allowing businesses to reopen. However in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus outbreak first emerged, there have been reports of new infections, while South Korea announced its biggest spike in new cases for more than a month. "A cluster of new cases... serves as a warning that the infection rates could spike again if lockdown measures are eased too quickly," said Fawad Razaqzada, analyst at ThinkMarkets trading group. Stock markets in Hong Kong, Sydney, Mumbai, Taipei, Singapore and Jakarta all closed down more than one percent Tuesday. Tokyo and Shanghai only dipped 0.1 percent however, while there were gains in Wellington and Bangkok. In Europe around the half-way stage, London was up 1.0 percent while Paris dipped 0.2 percent. "While markets may eventually desensitise to mini-cluster outbreaks, provided death statistics remain static... at this stage, it does not lessen fears of a significant secondary spreader, which will undoubtedly weigh on consumer sentiment and hurt the rebound," said AxiCorp analyst Stephen Innes. He added that investors would have to expect such uncertainty until a vaccine for the virus is found. Losses for some equity markets Tuesday came following healthy pullbacks in recent weeks from troughs reached in March when lockdowns spread worldwide. "It's well and good to say 'OK, we've contained the disease', but how long does the recession last?" queried Chris Rands, at Nikko Asset Management. "Typically when you look at unemployment spikes they take years to fix, they don't fix themselves in three months." Elsewhere Tuesday, oil prices jumped after Saudi Arabia said it would slash an extra million barrels per day from its June output. Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates also announced cuts after the pandemic caused global crude demand to plunge. After last month's historic collapse in oil prices below zero, the commodity has shot higher in recent weeks after top producers already agreed to slash output by a combined 10 million barrels per day. London - FTSE 100: UP 1.0 percent at 5,998.22 points Frankfurt - DAX 30: UP 0.5 percent at 10,881.23 Paris - CAC 40: DOWN 0.2 percent at 4,483.42 EURO STOXX 50: UP 0.4 percent at 2,895.39 Tokyo - Nikkei 225: DOWN 0.1 percent at 20,366.48 (close) Hong Kong - Hang Seng: DOWN 1.5 percent at 24,245.68 (close) Shanghai - Composite: DOWN 0.1 percent at 2,891.56 (close) New York - Dow: DOWN 0.5 percent at 24,221.99 (close) West Texas Intermediate: UP 5.2 percent at $25.40 per barrel Brent North Sea crude: UP 2.8 percent at $30.47 per barrel Euro/dollar: UP at $1.0845 from $1.0817 at 2040 GMT Dollar/yen: DOWN at 107.35 yen from 107.65 yen Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2362 from $1.2337 Euro/pound: UP at 87.71 pence from 87.65 pence dan-bcp/rfj/rl
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