HK Leads Asian Stock Losses As China Reels From COVID

Asian markets fell Monday, Nov. 21, 2022, as China's first COVID death in six months sparked fears officials would reimpose strict, economically painful restrictions to fight outbreaks across the country.

Photo Insert: Hong Kong's leader John Lee also contracted COVID-19 after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok.

The news threw a spanner in the works for investors who had grown hopeful of a gradual reopening after Beijing eased a number of virus-fighting measures earlier this month, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

The death of an 87-year-old man in Beijing on Sunday came as infections across the country spiked, testing authorities' plans to loosen their grip by lowering quarantine times for foreigners and canceling mass tests.

Beijing has in recent days moved to confine some residents to their homes and ordered others to quarantine centers. Hong Kong's leader John Lee also contracted COVID-19 after meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Bangkok.

The measures dealt a particular blow to Hong Kong's Hang Seng, which fell 2.8%, extending a sell-off at the end of last week and eating further into a recent massive rally. Shanghai was down 1% and Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 slid 0.1%.

The British pound was down to $1.1843 from $1.1883 on Friday. The euro was down at $1.0292 from $1.0321. The dollar was up at 140.42 yen from 140,40 yen. In New York, Dow was up 0.6% while London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.5%.

West Texas Intermediate (WTI) was down 0.7% at $79.55 per barrel while Brent North Sea crude was also down 0.8 percent at $86.92 per barrel, Bloomberg reported.

Global markets have enjoyed a broadly healthy November thanks to signs of China easing and indications of slowing US inflation that fanned optimism the Fed would start to slow its pace of interest rate hikes.

The well-below-forecast readings in the consumer and wholesale indexes suggested months of strict tightening measures were finally working through the economy and having results, allowing for a less hawkish Fed.

But several officials soon lined up to warn that more needed to be done to get inflation back down from four-decade highs to more bearable levels.

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