The Hang Seng Index (HSI) plunged more than 5% in the afternoon session on Monday, leading Asian markets in losses as investors are monitoring the fresh wave of Covid-19 outbreak in China. Meanwhile, the tech stocks continued to fall amid fear of delisting U.S.-listed American depositary receipts of Chinese companies.
HSI fell 5.42% in the afternoon session, while mainland Chinese stocks closed 2.60% lower.
China is facing the largest wave of Covid-19 outbreak since the end of national lockdown in March 2020, as infection cases surged from a few hundreds to more than 2,000 on Sunday. Hong Kong had just come off its record high of more than 56,000 cases per day in early March to 13,300 cases on Sunday.
The new wave of Covid-19 in China could have a huge impact on its economic recovery, especially if that leads to a lockdown.
Moreover, the Hong Kong tech stocks were also pressured by the regulation by the U.S. SEC since last Friday for identifying U.S.-listed American depositary receipts of Chinese companies that could be subject to delisting if they failed to comply with certain auditing requirements. The five companies are Yum China, BeiGene, Zai Lab, ACM Research and HUTCHMED.
Hang Seng TECH Index fell 11.35% on Monday, March 14, 2022.
