Asian Stocks Down as COVID-19 Worries Linger

Stocks in the Asia Pacific market fell Tuesday morning, retaining the downward trend which began on Monday. Investors globally continue to ditch certain stocks as intensifying talks of the possibility of a fresh outbreak of the COVID-19 Delta variant continue to drive trading decisions worldwide.  

As these new speculations stall the recovery efforts of many economies around the world, investors are now favoring safe-haven assets and ditching stocks that are considered risky.

As of 10:15 PM ET (2:15 AM GMT), Japan’s Nikkei 225 had fallen 0.58%, while South Korea’s KOSPI also fell 0.51%. Over in the Australian market, the ASX 200 fell 0.18%, as investor decision was influenced by the contents of a policy meeting minute which was published early in the morning.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index also fell 0.41%, while China’s Shanghai Composite was down 0.74%. Conversely, the Shenzhen Component rose by 0.06%. 

The state of the market is also partly due to a recent indictment of China by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other ally nations as the mastermind of the bouts of malicious ransomware, data theft, and cyber-espionage attacks perpetrated against private and state-run agencies. 

A very notable one is the Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) Exchange hack earlier in the year.