BANGKOK — Asian shares were mostly higher on Tuesday after a worldwide slump for financial markets spurred by worries about how badly the omicron variant, inflation and other forces will affect the world economy.
The Nikkei 225 index NIK rose 2% and Hang Seng HSI added 0.2% in Hong Kong. In Seoul, the Kospi 180721, gained 0.5%, while the Shanghai Composite Index, SHCOMP, picked up 0.4%. In Sydney, the S&P ASX 200 XJO, climbed 0.5%. The stock price fell in Malaysia FBMKLCI and Indonesia JAKIDX, but rose in Singapore STI and Taiwan Y 9999. Much of the concern over the outlook has been driven by the omicron variant of coronaviruses. Cases in Europe and the U.S. have accounted for 73% of new infections last week, a nearly six-fold increase in only seven days, according to the U.S. federal health officials.
In Asia, cases of coronavirus have surged in Australia and South Korea, as governments tighten precautions to prevent or curb outbreaks.
Shares fell around the world on Monday. The price of U.S. crude fell 3.7% after the newest coronanviruses variant led factories, airplanes and drivers to burn less fuel.
Oil prices went up early on Tuesday, with U.S. crude CLF 22, gaining 81 cents to $69.42 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Omicron may be the scariest force hitting markets, but it is not the only one. A proposed $2 trillion spending program by the U.S. government took a potential death blow over the weekend when an influential senator said he could not support it. Markets are still absorbing the Federal Reserve's move to more quickly remove aid it is throwing at the economy because of rising inflation, as well as absorbing the momentous move by the Federal Reserve last week.
Another feared consequence of the omicron variant is that it could cause inflation to go higher and potentially cause closures at ports, factories and other key points of the long global supply chain leading to customers.
The benchmark S&P 500 SPX, 1.1%, was lowered to 4,568 by all of them. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA fell 1.2%, to 34,932. The Nasdaq Composite COMP fell 1.2%, to 14,980. The US dollarUSDJPY rose to 113.65 Japanese yen from 113.61 yen in currency trading.