Asian Shares Rise, Nix Plunge Of Wall Street Tech Stocks

Asian shares were mostly higher Friday after a historic plunge in the stock price of Facebook’s parent company helped yank other tech stocks lower on Wall Street, Elaine Kurtenbach reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: Trading has been muted this week, with Chinese markets closed and coronavirus cases still surging in Asia, especially in Japan and Hong Kong.

Hong Kong jumped 2.6% after reopening from Lunar New Year holidays. Shanghai remained closed. Tokyo and Seoul advanced while Sydney was lower. Other regional markets were higher.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng rose 607 points to 24,391.85. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo edged less than 0.1% higher, to 27,269.22. South Korea’s Kospi advanced 0.8% to 2,728.00. In Sydney, the S&P/ASX 200 declined 0.1% to 7,068.30.

Trading has been muted this week, with Chinese markets closed and coronavirus cases still surging in Asia, especially in Japan and Hong Kong,

The 26.4% wipeout in Meta Platforms, as Facebook’s owner is now known, erased more than $230 billion in market value, easily the biggest one-day loss in history for a US company. Because Meta is valued so highly, a big swing in its stock price can also sink or lift broader market indexes.

The S&P 500 fell 2.4%, its biggest drop in nearly a year, to 4,477.44. The tech-focused Nasdaq composite gave up 3.7%, its biggest loss since September 2020, closing at 13,878.82.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average, which does not include Meta Platforms, fell 1.5% to 35,111.16. Small-company stocks also fell. The Russell 2000 index lost 38.48 points, or 1.9%, to 1,991.03.

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