Shares of Chinese tech giant Alibaba in Hong Kong came to the fore again today, after Chinese regulators ordered Ant Group to join Alibaba to improve its business operations.
Ahead of the Hong Kong market closure, the city-listed Alibaba shares fell by 7.98%, leading to an increase in the company's losses. Earlier, the stock had also declined on Thursday following reports that Chinese regulators would conduct an investigation into the technology company for alleged monopoly issues.
In addition, shares of other Chinese technology firms listed in Hong Kong also faced a decline, namely Tencent which fell by 6.65% while Meituan declined 6.88% and SMIC, China's largest chip maker also suffered the same fate when its shares in Hong Kong fell by 4.2%.
What is the cause of this fall?
Shares in Asia were allegedly volatile when the last week of trading 2020 began. For example, in Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 0.74% and closed at 26.854.03 while the Topix index rose 0.54% and closed at 1.788.04 while the South Korean Kospi closed higher at 2.808.60.
Meanwhile, Chinese shares in Shanghai were largely unchanged at 3.397.29 while the Shenzhen component recorded an increase of 0.193% to 14.044.10. However, the Hong Kong Hang Seng index declined 0.27% and closed at 26.314.63. Subsequently, the MSCI Index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan increased by 0.09%.
In addition, profits in Chinese industrial firms in November recorded an increase of 15.5% over the previous year. While markets in Australia and New Zealand are closed on Mondays for holidays.
In addition, the US dollar index, stood at 90,093 after recording a fall from above 90.4 in the last few days.
Not only that! The Japanese yen traded at 103.46 per dollar after seeing levels below 103.4 against the US dollar last week. In addition, the Australian dollar changed hands at $ 0.7613 after recovering from a fall below $ 0.75 last week.
Further, oil prices were higher in Asian evenings, with the international benchmark Brent crude rising 0.18% to $ 51.38 a barrel while US crude futures rose 0.25% to $ 48.35 a barrel.
