Asian markets halted their slide yesterday with investor nerves eased after a week of volatility prompted by the rapid spread of a viral illness in China.
The coronavirus infection has killed at least 26 people while the number of confirmed cases has leapt to 830, health officials said. Authorities have shut down public transport in 13 cities — together home to more than 40 million people — around the epicenter of the outbreak in Wuhan.
“Markets are fearful the virus could spread, and even if it doesn’t the impact on China could be large,” National Australia Bank analyst Tapas Strickland said in a note.
However, the WHO has stopped short of declaring a global health emergency — a rare instrument used only for the worst outbreaks.
“The WHO has provided a hefty dose of market prescribed penicillin that has lowered investors’ fever for the time being,” AxiCorp Financial Services Pty chief market strategist Stephen Innes said.
Hong Kong was down nearly 4 percent for the week, but closed 0.2 percent higher after a half-day session ahead of the Lunar New Year holiday. Tokyo closed up 0.1 percent after sliding 1.2 percent since Monday, while Sydney finished the day 0.3 percent higher.
Mainland bourses began their week-long break for the holiday, a day after the Shanghai exchange shed nearly three percent in its worst pre-Lunar New Year market fall on record.
Fears remain that the holiday — when hundreds of millions of people travel across China — could catalyze a further spread of the virus and knock-on market headwinds.
“The fact the virus has spread to Singapore, an overly scrutinized customs entry point, suggests the best window for controlling the infection may have passed,” Innes said.
Europe’s main equity markets rebounded strongly at the open on Friday, after Asian indices halted their slide.
In initial trades, London’s benchmark FTSE 100 index of major blue-chip companies rallied 1.1 percent to 7,588.33 points compared with the close on Thursday, Frankfurt’s DAX 30 index won 1.0 percent to 13,525.16 points and the Paris CAC 40 also added 1.0 percent to 6,032.60.
Oil benchmarks climbed slightly after shedding around 1.5 percent on Thursday on fears the viral outbreak would hit the aviation and transport sectors.
“Traders remain incredibly twitchy about the effects the coronavirus outbreak could have on Chinese GDP and air travel more broadly,” Innes said.
Further slides would “very much depend on the stream of outbreak headlines,” he added.
New York weathered the battering of global equities on Thursday with sentiment shifting after confirmation the WHO would not yet declare a global emergency.
The NASDAQ edged to a new record, while the Dow finished slightly negative.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained