The Tokyo and Hong Kong stock markets suddenly fell sharply on Thursday morning after unconfirmed reports of military activity in eastern Ukraine. But the decline is limited, and in the rest of Asia there is an upturn.
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After the trading day started without the excessive effects on Asia and the Pacific region on Thursday, several of the most important stock exchanges suddenly crashed around 5 o’clock Norwegian time.
Simultaneously with the fall, there were unconfirmed reports on social media about activity in the border areas between Ukraine and Russia, Bloomberg writes. According to the state-run Russian news agency Ria Novosti, Ukraine has shelled pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country, writes Reuters.
Ukraine has not commented on the allegations, which have not been confirmed from elsewhere, writes NTB.
This result shows first and foremost how vulnerable the mood in the market is right now, Bloomberg writes, and emphasizes that such unconfirmed claims are common on both sides.
After the sudden fall, the important indices that fell in Asia have recovered somewhat.
This is what it looked like around 6 o’clock Norwegian time:
- The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo falls 0.97 percent
- Hang Seng in Hong Kong is down 0.62 percent
- Kospi in Seoul rises 0.61 percent
- Shanghai Composite is up 0.35 percent
- The FTSE Straits Times in Singapore is up 0.36 percent
- The ASX 200 in Sydney is up 0.04 percent
Accuses Russia of escalating
In other words, fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine continue to plague world markets.
The United States accused Russia on Wednesday night of arming itself along the border with Ukraine, instead of moving troops away, as Russian authorities claimed on Tuesday. US authorities claim that Russia has sent another 7,000 troops to the border in recent days
– That is what Russia is doing. And that’s what Russia is doing. We have not seen any withdrawal of forces yet, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told MSNBC, according to Reuters.
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