The new virus variant caused a price slide last week.
(Photo: AP)
Dusseldorf At the beginning of the week, investors withdrew from the Asian markets. The appearance of the Omikron virus variant unsettled the stock exchange traders, as it is still unclear what effects the Corona mutant will have on the economic recovery and the tightening plans of the central banks. “The news about Omikron makes it clear that central banks and governments must be careful about removing economic support and incentives,” said Craig James, chief economist at CommSec.
The Japanese Nikkei index fell 1.6 percent on Monday to 28,284 points and the Shanghai Stock Exchange by 0.1 percent to 3560 points. “In the region, memories of the Delta wave earlier this year are still very fresh,” said analyst Jeffrey Halley of brokerage firm Oanda. Asia’s economies are also heavily dependent on the development of the global economy.
The possibility that the previous vaccines provide poorer protection against the Omikron variant has a particularly strong impact on mood. Travel and leisure stocks were among the biggest losers on the Japanese stock market.
The courses of the railway operators Central Japan Railway, East Japan Railway and Keisei collapsed by up to 7.6 percent. The papers of Oriental Land, the operator of the amusement park Tokyo Disney Resort, slipped by almost five percent. At the same time, the Chinese tourism index fell by four percent at times.
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