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Asia Pacific Stocks Fall Largely

24 March 2021

Asia Pacific Stocks Fall Largely

Shares in the Asia-Pacific region fell mostly on Wednesday as fears of a recovery from the pandemic put pressure on investor sentiment.

 

Hong Kong's Hang Seng index was one of the worst losers among the region's major markets, closing 2.03% below 27,918.14. Wednesday's falls left the index in the correction zone as it was more than 10% below the 52-week high set in mid-February.

 

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 fell 2.04%, closing at 28,405.52, while the Topix index fell 2.18% to end the day at 1,928.58.

 

Mainland China shares also fell that day, with the Shanghai index falling 1.3 percent to 3,367.06, while the Shenzhen component fell 1.469% to 13,407.35.

 

In South Korea, The Kospi fell 0.28% to end the trading day at 2,996.35.

 

Australia's shares countered the overall trend at the regional level, as the S and P/ASX 200 rose 0.5% to close at 6,778.80.

 

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.22 percent.

 

The World Health Organization said earlier this week that new cases of Covid-19 are on the rise in many parts of the world as highly unt off strains continue to spread. In Europe, the authorities continue to fight the virus, as the region overtook the third wave of Covid.

 

As for corporate events, shares of Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group in Hong Kong fell by 4.83%. This happened after Hong Kong and Macau announced the suspension of bioNTech Covid vaccination. Fosun Pharma is a partner of BioNTech in the development and distribution of the Comirnaty Covid-19 vaccine in greater China.

 

Shares of Chinese technology giant Tencent in Hong Kong fell 0.8 percent on Wednesday. Reuters reported, citing people directly aware of this, that the company's founder met with representatives of the Chinese antitrust authority this month to discuss compliance with the requirements in his group.

 

In Taiwan, shares of chip maker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company fell 3.03%. It comes after Intel announced it would spend $20 billion to build two new chip plants in Arizona.

 

Meanwhile, Chinese streaming company Bilibili announced on Tuesday that it would raise 20.2 billion Hong Kong dollars (about $2.6 billion) for its upcoming secondary listing in Hong Kong after its shares were valued at 808 Hong Kong dollars each. Bilibili shares are expected to start trading in Hong Kong on Monday.

 

Overnight in the United States, the index of the S'amp;P 500 fell by 0.76% and closed at 3910.52, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 308.05 points and ended its trading day at 32,423.15. The Nasdaq Composite closed down 1.12% to 13,227.70.

 

The U.S. dollar index, which tracks the dollar against a basket of its counterparts, was at 92.593 after rising from levels below 91.8 earlier in the week.

 

The Japanese yen was trading at 108.59 per dollar, up from levels of around 108.9 per dollar seen earlier this week.

 

Oil prices rose in asian trading in the afternoon, while international futures for Brent crude oil rose 1.6 percent to $61.76 per barrel, while U.S. crude futures rose 1.66 percent to $58.72 per barrel.

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