REFILE-GLOBAL MARKETS-Oil firmer on OPEC+ deal, equities unable to shake pandemic fears

(Corrects verb tense in paragraph 1)
* U.S. stock futures fall over 1%
* Oil prices up in choppy trade
* Investors brace for bigger economic hit from virus
* Asian stock markets: https://tmsnrt.rs/2zpUAr4

By Hideyuki Sano
TOKYO, April 13 (Reuters) - Global shares fell on Monday as
investors braced for more signs of economic damage from the
coronavirus pandemic although a landmark deal by OPEC and its
allies to slash output helped oil prices climb in volatile
trade.
The Nikkei .N225 fell 1.4% while MSCI's broadest index of
Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS slipped
slightly, with South Korean shares .KS11 falling 0.9%.
U.S. S&P 500 mini futures EScv1 dropped 1.54%, erasing a
brief gain to a one-month high made right after the start of
trading.
Financial markets in Australia and Hong Kong were closed
while in mainland China, the CSI300 index .CSI300 lost 0.6% in
early trade.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were
up 7.3% at $24.43 per barrel in highly volatile trade, having
fallen more than 3% to $22.03 earlier in the session.
A group of oil producing countries known as OPEC+, which
includes Russia, said it had agreed to reduce output by 9.7
million barrels per day (bpd) for May-June, after four days of
marathon talks. International benchmark Brent futures LCOc1 rose 5.5% to
$33.22 per barrel.
Still, they are down more than 50% from their January peak
as the novel coronavirus pandemic has brought the global economy
to a standstill and hit fuel demand.
"While the Federal Reserve's stimulus has allayed fears of a
financial crisis for now, the economy is far from returning to
normalcy," said Hiroshi Watanabe, economist at Sony Financial
Holdings.
Investors looked to whether the novel coronavirus pandemic,
which has ravaged global economic growth, will soon peak in the
United States and Europe, as had been hoped.
"While panic selling we saw last month has faded, not many
investors would want to chase stock prices higher given we are
about to see more evidence of economic downturns," said Masahiro
Ichikawa, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset
Management.
OPEC and allies led by Russia, the so-called OPEC+ group,
said they had an unprecedented deal with fellow oil nations,
including the United States, to curb global oil supply by more
than 20 million bpd, or 20% of global supply.
Still, that falls short of completely offsetting an
estimated 30 million bpd drop in worldwide fuel consumption
caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. "In the short term, the WTI may hold above $20 after the
deal but it could fall below that level unless all the countries
follow up their words with actions," said Tatsufumi Okoshi,
senior economist at Nomura Securities.
Also in focus this week, U.S. companies announce their
earnings, starting with big banks, while China releases its
trade data on Tuesday and closely watched gross domestic product
data on Friday.
Companies are only now adjusting their behaviour to deal
with an expected global recession, which the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) has said will be "way worse" than the global
financial crisis a decade ago. Kia Motors Corp 000270.KS told its labour union in South
Korea that it wants to suspend operations at three of its
domestic factories as the outbreak weighs on exports to Europe
and the United States. In foreign exchange markets, risk-sensitive currencies were
softer while the safe-haven dollar and the yen found support.
The Australian dollar fell 0.3% to $0.6303 AUD=D4 while
the Mexican peso dropped 0.4% to 23.430 per dollar MXN=D4 .
The euro stood flat at $1.0934 EUR= and the yen gained
0.15% to 108.34 to the dollar JPY= .

(Editing by Sam Holmes)