The Tokyo Stock Exchange went down sharply on Monday, faced with the risk of seeing the recovery of the world economy seriously slow because of the global pandemic, which crossed the milestone of ten million cases on Sunday.
The Nikkei flagship index fell 1.59% to 22,154.68 points and the Topix expanded 1.45% to 1,554.52 points around 00:50 GMT.
Wall Street had already suffered heavy losses Friday against the alarming surge of the coronavirus in many American states, raising fears of a slowdown in the economic recovery in the United States.
Europe is not out of danger either, nor is China, especially Beijing, where the epidemic situation is “serious and complex,” a spokesman for the municipality acknowledged on Sunday.
The Tokyo market was also concerned about the increase in the number of daily cases observed for several days in the Japanese capital, noted Yoshihiro Ito, chief strategist at Okasan Online Securities.
Since the start of the health crisis, Covid-19 has infected more than ten million people worldwide and 500,000 have died, according to a count by AFP from official sources.
On the side of values
All business sectors on the Nikkei were in the red, including financial stocks, real estate and food.
SOFTBANK GROUP: the title of SoftBank Group (-1.01% to 5,477 yen) hardly benefited from the group’s announcement of an exceptional temporary gain of 600 billion yen (5 billion euros) in its accounts of the first 2020/21 quarter (April-June), linked to the sale of two-thirds of its stake in T-Mobile US for around $ 20 billion last week.
On the currency and oil side
Around 00:50 GMT, the dollar was almost stable against the yen, at a rate of one dollar for 107.17 yen against 107.22 yen Friday at 21:00 GMT.
The euro / yen price was unchanged, a euro worth 120.29 yen as of Friday.
The euro was barely advancing against the greenback, at the rate of one euro for 1.1225 dollars against 1.1219 dollars at the end of last week.
Oil prices fell sharply, weighed down by the negative consequences of the acceleration of the global pandemic for demand for black gold.
Around 00:40 GMT the price of a barrel of American crude WTI dropped 2.03% to 37.71 dollars, and that of a barrel of Brent of the North Sea yielded 2% to 40.20 dollars.
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