Decline Continues in Asian Stock Exchanges

Decline Continues in Asian Stock Exchanges

Developments related to the new type of coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak caused fluctuations in the markets and caused incredible losses in shares, despite many measures taken, it was observed that the sharp decline in Asian stock markets continued. After the total number of cases in the world exceeded 160 thousand, quarantine implementation was started across France and Spain after Italy, while USA President Donald Trump declared a national emergency due to the epidemic. With these developments, the US Central Bank (Fed) cut its policy interest rate from 1.00-1.25 percent to 0-0.25 percent for the second time. The bank also announced that it will make a total of $ 700 billion in monetary expansion, of which $ 500 billion is the treasury and $ 200 billion in mortgage-backed bonds. In addition, the Central Bank of Japan (BoJ) also convened before the 18-19 March meeting and took steps to increase monetary expansion. In this context, the Bank increased the amount of Borsa Mutual Funds (ETF) purchases from 6 trillion yen annually to 12 trillion annually and Japanese real estate investment funds (J-REIT) purchases from 90 billion annually to 180 billion annually. As part of the steps to ease corporate finance, a new operation with a zero interest rate of up to 1 year will be launched until the end of September to provide loans as collateral against corporate debts. Despite the measures taken for relaxation, the Nikkei 225 index decreased by 2.46 percent in Japan and completed the day at 17.002.04 points. The dollar/yen parity fell 0.55 percent to 106.4 levels. The Shanghai Composite index in China fell 3.40 percent near the close to 2.789.25 points. In India, the Sensex index fell 5.42 percent to 32,255.62 points, the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong fell 4.67 percent to 22,909.42 points, and the South Korea Kospi index was 3.19 percent to 1,719.86 points.