Asian stock markets closed mostly high on Thursday (22) driven by advances of more than 1% in New York the day before.
Tech stocks led the gains and mainly pulled stocks in Hong Kong, whose benchmark index led gains. On the other hand, stock markets in China closed down on concerns about the increase in cases and deaths from Covid-19 in the country.
The Shanghai Composite Index was down 0.46% to 3,054.43 points, and the less comprehensive Shenzhen Composite dropped 0.72% to 1,955.58 points. Hang Seng advanced 2.71%, to 19,679.22 points, with Meituan (+6.89%) and JD.com (+6.21%) among the highlights.
Although there is some optimism for the Chinese economic reopening, mainly boosting the Hong Kong stock exchange, shares in the mainland Chinese market suffer in the face of the local worsening of Covid-19.
After a new outbreak caused more deaths from the disease, President Xi Jinping’s government decided to change the rules for accounting for deaths. Now, only patients who die from pneumonia or respiratory failure will be counted as victims of covid-19.
In response, the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said that the organization is “very concerned” with the current Chinese situation.
Among other markets, the Nikkei index, from Tokyo, rose 0.46%, to 26,507.87 points, recovering after consecutive days of decline due to the last monetary decision of the Bank of Japan (BoJ, in its acronym in English), reads as a sign of minus monetary easing ahead, though officials caution against such an analysis.
The South Korean Kospi was up 1.19%, to 2,356.73 points, and the Taiwanese Taiex rose 1.47%, to 14,442.94 points.
According to analyst Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management, “Asian equities have picked up where the US market left off, with technology and property firms leading the way following a flurry of comments from regulators about support for broader markets.”
In Oceania, finally, the S&P/ASX 200 index ended with gains of 0.53%, at 7,152.50 points. With information from Associated Press.
Source: CNN Brasil
A journalist with over 7 years of experience in the news industry, currently working at World Stock Market as an author for the Entertainment section and also contributing to the Economics or finance section on a part-time basis. Has a passion for Entertainment and fashion topics, and has put in a lot of research and effort to provide accurate information to readers.
