Asian shares were lower Friday after an early rally on Wall Street suddenly vanished, the latest example of how fragile the hopes underpinning the stock market’s monthlong recovery are.

Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 NIK, -0.57% slipped 0.8% in morning trading. South Korea’s Kospi 180721, -0.57% lost 0.4%, while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 XJO, +1.91% edged up 0.8%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng HSI, +0.11% fell 0.2%, while the Shanghai Composite SHCOMP, +0.12% also fell 0.5%.

Investor sentiment was back on fragility mode as focus again shifted to the economic damage the world was likely to suffer because of the pandemic, says Prakash Sakpal and Nicholas Mapa, economists at ING.

“Investors will continue to be monitoring developments on the COVID-19 front with a setback on clinical testing for a treatment to the virus. Meanwhile, the U.S. passed a fresh round of stimulus while oil prices continued to inch up slightly,” they said in a commentary.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 flipped between gains and losses and ended the day down 0.1%. It’s a microcosm of the extreme swings that have gripped markets for months, as investors struggle to set prices for where corporate profits and the economy will be months from now.

The S&P 500 skidded by a third from its record in February until a month ago, and since then has roughly halved its losses on a series of tenuous hopes — of businesses reopening, of government aid to temper the economic pain and of possible treatments for COVID-19.

A report from the Financial Times on Thursday afternoon undercut that third hope. It said a potential antiviral drug flopped in a clinical trial, citing documents published accidentally by the World Health Organization.

Shares of the company behind the drug, Gilead Sciences GILD, -1.26% , flipped from a 3.3% gain to a 4.3% loss after the report. It also helped flip the market.

The S&P 500 SPX, +1.05% finished at 2,797.80, down 1.51 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +0.51% rose 39.44 points, or 0.2%, to 23,515.26 after losing almost all of a 409-point gain. The Nasdaq composite COMP, +1.71% slipped 0.63 points to 8,494.75.

“It should be expected — even as we are optimistic, and we see signs of progress in treatment, testing and vaccines — that there’s going to be some forward and some backsliding,” said Nela Richardson, investment strategist at Edward Jones.

She said investors are still encouraged by signs of progress in some places that are seeing fewer new patients and deaths.

“The risk is that these fundamentals that we’re seeing now that are dastardly, just terrible and reflective of the economy really going into a sudden stop, last longer than what the markets currently anticipate,” she said. “That uncertainty will cause volatility, even if the overall trajectory in the market is positive.”

U.S. benchmark crude US:CLM20 rose 68 cents to $17.18 a barrel. It rose 19.7% to settle at $16.50 a barrel. It has recovered after falling below $12 Monday, though it remains well below the roughly $60 level it started the year at. Brent crude UK:BRNM20 , the international standard, rose 49 cents to $21.82 a barrel.