Asian stock markets are declining in trading on Monday.
Investors were negatively influenced by protests in China against the “zero tolerance” policy on COVID-19, reports MarketWatch.
Demonstrations against restrictive measures imposed by the authorities of the country because of the coronavirus infection took place on Sunday night in a number of Chinese cities, reports AP. In Shanghai in particular, about 300 people gathered for a midnight protest. Police used pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
On Friday, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) announced a 0.25 percentage point reduction in reserve requirements for banks starting Dec. 5, which is expected to free up liquidity totaling 500 billion yuan ($70 billion) in the financial system.
The reserve requirement ratio for large banks will drop to 11 percent, the lowest since mid-2007. It will average 7.8 percent in the country’s banking sector.
“The purpose of lowering the reserve requirement ratio is to maintain sufficient liquidity in the financial system and support the real economy,” the NBK said in a statement.
China’s Shanghai Composite index was down 1.4 percent by 7:31 a.m. Ksk. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was down 2.4% by that time, while earlier in trading it had fallen as much as 4%.
Shares of developers Country Garden Holdings Co. (-5.8%) and Longfor Group Holdings Ltd. (-5%), insurers Pung An Insurance (-5%) and China Life Insurance Co. (-3.9%), retailer JD.com Inc. (-4.7%), and banks China Merchants Bank Co. (-4.3%) and Hang Seng Bank Ltd. (-4%) showed the most noticeable decline on Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
At the same time, the owner of the restaurant chain Haidilao International Holding Ltd. (+4.6%), breweries China Resources Beer (Holdings) Co. (+2.1%) and Budweiser Brewing Co. APAC (+1.5%).
Japan’s Nikkei 225 was down 0.5% by 7:26 a.m. Ksk.
Among the index components the leaders in value decline are shares of CyberAgent Inc. (-7.6%), metal producers Nippon Steel Corp. (-3.5%), JFE Holdings (-2.8%) and Sumitomo Metal Mining Co. (-2.8%).
Moreover, the securities of such big companies as SoftBank Group (-0.6%), Toyota Motor (-0.9%) and Nintendo (-0.8%) are also declining.
South Korea’s Kospi index was down 1.1% by 7:25 a.m. Ksk.
One of the world’s biggest chip and electronics maker Samsung Electronics Co. was down 1.6% while Hyundai Motor rose 1.5%.
Australian S&P/ASX 200 index lost 0.4% over the day.
Share prices of the world’s largest mining companies BHP and Rio Tinto declined by 0.7% and 1.4% respectively.
Retail sales in Australia in October unexpectedly declined 0.2% from the previous month, according to preliminary data. This came as a surprise to analysts, who had forecast an average increase of 0.5%, Trading Economics reported.
The decline was the first since December 2021.
