Asian stock markets weakened slightly today, with the exception of China, where technology companies in particular continued to grow. The Japanese stock market delivered its best performance since 1989 this year, with Tokyo’s main Nikkei 225 index adding 28 percent to 33,464.17 points. Stocks in China and Hong Kong, on the other hand, have fared the worst of all the world’s stock markets this year. Their indices have lost more than 10 per cent over the year, although the week ended was their best in five months.
CSI 300 Faces Unprecedented Third Straight Annual Decline
The main index of Chinese stocks, the CSI 300, which includes shares of three hundred companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges, closed 0.49 per cent higher today at 3,431.11 points. But it has posted an unprecedented third straight full-year decline, down 11.8 percent this year. The lingering recovery of the Chinese economy and geopolitical tensions are to blame. But some investors are now seeing a window of opportunity in the market after a perceptible drop in prices and are shifting profits from other deals to it at the end of the year.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index ended today’s trading up 0.02 per cent at 17,047.39 points. It gained 4.3 per cent for the week but has written off 14 per cent for the year.
Chinese Market Dynamics
China “disappointed investors who were expecting a strong recovery after the covid-19 pandemic,” said analyst William Witherell of Cumberland Advisors. He recalled that the world’s second-largest economy has been hit by widespread and persistent problems in the housing market and local government debt woes, the deleveraging of which is still ongoing.
South Korean markets were closed today. The KOSPI index there has risen 18.7 percent this year, while the Kosdaq index has gained 27.5 percent. Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 index then rose 7.84 percent for the year.
The MSCI index of global equities will show growth of around 20 percent this year, Reuters noted. It will be helped by strong gains from the United States and Japan, as well as India and Mexico.
Source: čtk
