Asian markets trade mostly lower in early deals on Monday

23 Mar 2020 Evaluate

Most of the Asian equity benchmarks are trading lower in early deals on Monday, on account of escalating fears regarding the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy. Further, plans of many countries and regions to adopt shutdowns and border closures in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19, created more tensions on slowdown of economic activity. However, Japan's Nikkei is trading higher on expectations of more asset buying by the Bank of Japan, while the safe-haven yen weakened against the dollar. Among the Asian markets, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Singapore, Shanghai and Malaysia are in negative territory.

Straits Times down 176.15 points or 7.31% to 2,234.59, Hang Seng declined 855.77 points or 3.75% to 21,949.30, Taiwan Weighted decreased 260.06 points or 2.82% to 8,974.03, KOSPI Index diminished 55.68 points or 3.56% to 1,510.47, Jakarta Composite shortened by 160.80 points or 3.83% to 4,034.14, Shanghai declined by 43.89 points or 1.60% to 2,701.73 and FTSE Bursa Malaysia KLCI down 36.39 points or 2.79% to 1,266.89. On the flip side, Nikkei 225 up 411.65 points or 2.49% to 16,964.48.

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