Asian stock prices rebounded Monday after heavy losses last week, although Chinese manufacturing data released this weekend and Monday is much worse than expected.
Mainland Chinese stocks surged during the day, with the Shanghai composite rising 3.15% to around 2,971. The Shenzhen component added 3.65% to 11,382. The Hong Kong Hang Seng Index rose also rose 0.75% in the last trading hour.
Stocks gained despite a private survey released Monday that showed factory activity in China had dropped to a record low in February. The Markit / Caixin Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 40.3. The figure dropped to 51.1 in January.
The survey release came on the back of data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Saturday, which showed that the official PMI fell to 35.7 in February – the lowest level ever recorded.
Elsewhere, the Nikkei 225 in Japan recovered from an earlier slide to climb 0.95% on the day to 21,344. Sharp shares rose 2.2% following information in the Japanese media last week that the company should start manufacturing face masks amid a shortage caused by the coronavirus epidemic.
The South Korean Kospi added 0.78% to close at 2,003. Australian stocks continued to fall on Monday, however, the S & P / ASX 200 fell 0.77% to close at 6,392 after dropping the last week.
In Europe, stocks rose Monday on hopes that central banks around the world will cut interest rates.
The Stoxx Europe 600 climbed 0.3% to 377, gains that were far from the highs of the start of the day. In Germany, the DAX fell 0.43%, while the French CAC 40 was trading flat. In London, the FTSE 100 jumped 1.15%.
The stocks won in the hope that central banks could introduce stimulus packages to lessen the impact of the coronavirus epidemic on the global economy.
Among individual stocks, British insurer Hiscox added 5.3% after reporting an increase in gross premiums on a full-year basis, while Austrian real estate company Immofinanz jumped 5.8% to lead the Stoxx 600.
The mobile operator SES plunged 17.3% to the lowest of the European benchmark after its report on the 2019 annual results.
In the United States, stock market futures rallied on Monday after large initial losses, suggesting a break in liquidation, after the worst week on Wall Street since 2008.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average futures fell initially by more than 300 points, but reversed course and rose for the last time by almost 500 points. The futures on the S&P 500 and the futures on the Nasdaq Composite initially fell more than 1.5%, but each increased by 1.5%.
