Half of the trading week brought a bad mood in many Asian stock markets. Stocks in Tokyo, Seoul and Hong Kong weakened, with only Shanghai reporting modest growth.
Investors are worried about the rise in new coronavirus outbreaks occurring in major Japanese cities in recent days. The head of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, Toshihiro Nikai, even recently said that in the event of a further rise in the epidemic, one possibility is to postpone the Tokyo Olympics again.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange fell about two percent on Wednesday, as measured by the main Nikkei index. The Japanese government is considering declaring a state of emergency in major cities, which would give authorities in individual prefectures the opportunity to impose restrictive anti-environmental measures.
But developments in Japan also had an impact on sentiment on the Seoul Stock Exchange, which lost more than 1.5 percent. Shares of technology companies such as Samsung, SK Hynix and LG Chem, as well as Hyundai, weakened. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index lost a little more. Of the major Asian exchanges, only markets in Shanghai or Shenzhen, China, strengthened, with major indices 0.3 and 0.22 percent, respectively.
