Nikkei 225 declined nearly 1.2% to 27,677.60, Kospi shed 0.9% to 3,247.68, S&P/ASX 200 slipped 1.2% to 7,261.60, Hang Seng lost 1.6% to 27,561.41, the Shanghai Composite fell 0.5% to 3,523.01
Shares in Asia dropped across the board Monday amid rising Covid-19 cases regionally and Wall Street’s first weekly loss after three weeks of gains.
Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 declined nearly 1.2% in early trading to 27,677.60. South Korea’s Kospi shed 0.9% to 3,247.68. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 1.2% to 7,261.60. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng lost 1.6% to 27,561.41, while the Shanghai Composite fell 0.5% to 3,523.01.
Asia stocks look set for a weak start, said Yeap Jun Rong, market strategist at IG. This comes as investors look beyond positive catalysts such as corporate earnings outperformance, focusing on several risk factors, such as higher inflation and more COVID-19 cases.
Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand, as well as parts of Japan, including Tokyo, are seeing a rise in Covid-19 cases.
The more transmissible delta variant is delaying the recovery for the ASEAN economies and pushing them further into the doldrums, said Venkateswaran Lavanya, at Mizuho Bank in Singapore, referring to Southeast Asian nations.
Big technology stocks like Apple and Amazon as well as banks and companies that rely on consumer spending led the losses on Wall Street. Energy and industrial stocks also helped drag the market down, outweighing gains in health care and utilities companies.
The S&P 500 dropped 32.87 points, or 0.8%, to 4,327.16. It closed the week with a 1% loss. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) shed 299.17 points, or 0.9%, to 34,687.85. The Nasdaq composite lost 115.90 points, or 0.8%, to 14,427.24.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies declined 27.06 points, or 1.2%, to 2,163.24. The index, which had outperformed the rest of the market for much of 2021, is now just 9.5% higher for the year, well below the S&P 500′s year-to-date (YTD) gain of 15.2%.
