SYDNEY, NSW, Australia-sharemarkets in Asia were mixed on Monday. China's Shenzen went into a lock-up recently after a major spike in Covid 19 cases.
ANZ Research's Raymond Yeung and Zhaopeng Xing wrote on Monday that China is experiencing the largest wave of COVID since the end of the national lockdown in March 2020.
China's economic growth will be negatively affected if the lock down is extended. It is too early to change our GDP growth forecast of 5.0% for 2022, but we are wary of the impact of a partial lockdown in the economically rich provinces, according to ANZ analysts.
The Shanghai Composite fell 86.21 points or 2.60 percent to close Monday at 3,223. The Hang Seng plunged 1,053 in Hong Kong, which caused real damage. 95 points or 5.13 percent of the total were 19,499. Tech stocks were hardest hit by the Hang Seng tech index, which sank more than 11 percent. Alibaba plummeted 11.12 percent. Meituan was down 16 percent, while TenCent fell 9.41 percent.
The All Ordinaries in Australia rose by 69.60 points or 0.95 percent to 7.408. S&P NZX 50 slid 16.27 points, or 0.14 percent, over the Tasman, to 11,805. 59 percent of the population is at 2,645. The key Japanese index, the Nikkei 225, added 145.07 points or 0.58 percent to 25,307. In Seoul, South Korea, the Kospi Composite fell 15.63 points or 15.63 points.
Rodrigo Catril, a senior FX strategist at NAB, said that the yen has not been able to display its typical safe-haven attributes due to the rise in US yields and the BoJ yield curve control policy that prevents JGBs from moving up in core global yields.
Japan is also a big energy importer, adding to concerns over a terms-of-trade shock from higher energy prices. In early European trading Monday, the Japanese yen was trading hands at 117.76, off an earlier low of 117.87. The Swiss franc has softened to 0.9359.
The Canadian dollar was down to 0.9359. The high-flying Australian dollar fell to 0.7241, a low of which was seen to be running out of steam.