HONG KONG - Almost every stock fell in Hong Kong as trading reopened on Wednesday for the first time this week.
Limiting losses in the city was a rebound in US markets overnight, which also triggered a 1.5 per cent gain in FTSE China A50 Index futures. The contracts had lost more than 6 per cent in Singapore since Friday, while the offshore yuan had slid 0.5 per cent to approach 7 per US dollar. Oil futures extended gains in Asia as pessimism about the virus eased somewhat and after Opec sources said the cartel wants to extend crude output cuts by three months to June, easing concern about excess supplies.
"This is supportive of Japanese stocks. You can buy Asian shares too, but I would not get too aggressive while Chinese markets are closed." In Hong Kong, traders had been off their desks since midday, before reported cases of the coronavirus surged globally and the number of confirmed deaths in China rose by more than threefold.