Hong Kong’s Hang Seng tumbled 2.8%, leading losses in the region. Japan’s Nikkei also dropped more than 2%. Korea’s Kospi was down 1.6%. China’s Shanghai Composite Index shed 1%.
Stock futures continued their downward trend on Thursday morning in Asia. The Dow futures were down 0.4%. The S&P 500 futures and Nasdaq futures were down 0.5% and 0.8% respectively.
Elevated inflation readings out of UK and Canada were “a reminder for markets that the fight against inflation among central banks globally will be a challenging process,” said Jun Rong Yeap, a market strategist for IG Group, on Thursday.
“An uptick in Covid-19 cases in China seems to dampen earlier hopes of a quick easing in overall virus restrictions, potentially contributing to the market risk aversion,” he added.
Those concerns were reinforced Wednesday when Tencent reported zero revenue growth in the first quarter, a worse outcome than expected.
“Despite recent assurances laid out by China authorities, the relief in China tech has proved to be short-lived thus far, as market participants await for more concrete policy follow-through in order to restore longer-term confidence,” Yeap said.