Chinese stocks ended Monday’s trading in negative territory, although they initially rose. Hong Kong stock also weakened, while Tokyo and Seoul were moderately optimistic.
The Shanghai Stock Exchange started the new trading week relatively positively. Stocks headed higher at the start of Monday’s session, but later in the day they began to erase their gains, eventually weakening by about 1 percent (as measured by the Shanghai Stock Exchange’s aggregate index). The CSI300 index, which includes blue chips titles, fell even further. The ChiNext technology index also weakened, but only by 0.8 percent.
Similar trading took place in Hong Kong, where the Hang Seng index lost 0.43 percent. The index involving Chinese companies then fell almost twice as much. According to analysts, fears of a worsening epidemic situation in some parts of the world, as well as continuing tensions in Sino-US relations, are to blame.
By contrast, the Tokyo Stock Exchange strengthened slightly on Monday. The Nikkei index added 0.36 percent, mainly due to shares of tourism-linked companies.Seoul’s KOSPI index added nearly 1 percent, with shares of South Korean technology firms the biggest boosters.
