HONG KONG : Asian stocks were largely on the front foot on Tuesday following Wall Street's record highs on its first trading day of 2022, despite worries that the widespread Omicron COVID-19 variant could put the brakes on global economic recovery.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index, however, fell 0.36per cent after China's cybersecurity watchdog announced official rules that will strengthen oversight over how its platform companies make plans to list abroad or use algorithms, but recovered losses when afternoon session started. Hong Kong's tech index lost 1.44per cent on the news.
The United States will release its employment data and purchasing managers' indexes this week. China is due to announce its trade data on Friday. In Asia, factory activity grew in December as companies took rising global cases of the new Omicron coronavirus variant in stride, though persistent supply constraints and rising input costs clouded the outlook for some economies.
The S&P index surged nearly 28per cent last year, driving MSCI's 50-country index of world stocks to its third consecutive year of double-digit gains.