Asia Stocks Pull Back on Tuesday after the Decline in Wall Street over Covid-19 Concerns

Stocks in Asia declined in the morning session on Tuesday, following the plummet in Wall Street last night as concerns of the pandemic continued to weigh down on the market.

 

As of 9:20 local time in Thailand on Tuesday, Nikkei dropped 0.32%, SSEC fell 0.08%, HSI decreased 0.58%, ASX200 plunged 0.45% and Kospi slipped 0.33%.

 

Last night, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 382.59 points or 1.25% lower at 30,223.89 points. The S&P 500 dipped 1.48% to close at 3,700.65 points. The Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.47% to 12,698.45 points.

 

Yesterday, the U.S. reported 190,165 additional coronavirus cases, while adding 1,987 casualties to the total death. As of Monday, January 4, 2021, about 15.4 million vaccine doses have been distributed in the U.S., but only 4.5 million people have received their first doses, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is far below the projection of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of last year.

In the U.K. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said England is adopting another national lockdown that he hopes will be enough to contain a new Covid-19 variant that is highly contagious than the original one.

Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said on Monday that the Government is considering declaring a state of emergency for the capital, Tokyo, and three neighbouring prefectures, following the request from the governors of Tokyo, where a resurgence of infections strained the country’s medical system.