Stock markets in the Asia-Pacific region are showing negative dynamics on Friday. The reason for the negative was the aggravating problem with the increasing number of COVID-19 infections in the region and the world. Investors are especially alarmed by the situation unfolding in Europe. All this suggests that restrictions and quarantine measures will be tightened. The authorities in many European countries are already talking about the need to severely restrict movement, which is already implemented in some countries.
Market participants are also strained by the uncertainty in the situation with the adoption of a new package of financial incentives in the United States of America, which was proposed a couple of weeks ago by US President Joe Biden. The authorities cannot agree on the ratification of the bill in any way, since not everyone is ready to agree with its amount of $1.9 trillion. A decent number of opponents of such a large financial injection has already emerged.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index was down 1.73%. At the same time, the new statistics on the development of the state's economy were not very impressive, which became an additional pressure factor. In particular, the volume of production in the industrial sector of Japan for December 2020 decreased by 1.6% compared to the previous month. The unemployment rate for the same month did not change compared to the previous period which remained at 2.9%. Recall that this is the minimum value of the indicator, which was recorded up to this point in the middle of summer. It is noteworthy that there were 106 open vacancies per 100 applicants in December, which is the highest level in the last almost six months.
In addition, the Bank of Japan is going to introduce a new approach to the existing securities buyback soon, which is another important news for Japanese stock exchanges. This decision was made following an assessment of the current monetary policy.
China's Shanghai Composite Index dropped 0.65%. The Hong Kong Hang Seng Index supported this negative trend and sank 0.48%.
South Korea's KOSPI index sank 2.89%.
South Korea's statistics are slightly better than that of Japan. The volume of industrial production in the country for December 2020 jumped by 3.4%, while an increase of only 0.5% was recorded a month earlier. Analysts' estimated an increase of 0.9%, which is much modest than the actual data.
However, the level of retail sales in the country at the end of 2020, on the contrary, decreased immediately by 2% on an annualized basis. There was also a drop of 1.5% in November last year which suggests a systemic decline in the indicator.
The Australian S&P/ASX 200 index sank 0.65%.
European stocks also fell sharply on Friday, while statistics on economic growth in individual countries of the region are mixed. For example, France's GDP in the fourth quarter of last year showed a 1.3% drop, which, however, reflected much smaller losses previously reported by analysts. According to forecasts, the indicator was supposed to fall by 4%. The level of German GDP for the same period, also rose 0.1%. However, over a full year, the German economy still contracted by 3.9%. All of these did not pleased investors, who are beginning to see problems even when they do not exist yet.
The general index of large industrial enterprises in the European region decreased by 0.81%, which moved it to the level of 400.12 points.
The UK FTSE 100 Index sank 0.8%. The German DAX Index dropped 0.99%. France's CAC 40 index was down 0.95%. Spain's IBEX 35 Index lost 0.98%. Italy's FTSE MIB Index parted from 0.97%.
