Asia stock markets turn negative, Europe indices post record

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) – Major stock markets in Asia reversed course Tuesday to close lower, while two major European indices reached record highs with strong earnings.

Asia Dow, which includes blue-chip companies in the region, fell 12 points, or 0.3%, to close at 3,863. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 stock exchange plummeted 139, or 0.5%, to 27,641 points.

Hang Seng, the benchmark for blue-chip stocks trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange, lost 40 points, or 0.16%, to 26,194, while China's Shanghai stock exchange was down 16, or 0.47%, to 3,447 points.

All four indexes closed Monday with gains after they lost between 0.6% and 5% last week.

In Europe, indexes have continued to increase after posting gains on Monday with oil and energy major BP's strong earnings.

The company reported a profit of around $3.1 billion in the second quarter of the year, against a loss of nearly $16.8 billion in the same quarter of 2020. It also announced to start a buyback of $1.4 billion worth shares from its surplus cash flow.

STOXX Europe 600, which includes around 90% of the market capitalization of the European market in 17 European countries, was up 0.35% to 466.08 points at 1000GMT. The French stock market, CAC 40, jumped 0.9% to 6,735. Both indexes hit their all-time highs earlier with 466.17 and 6,737.16, respectively.

London's FTSE 100 increased 0.5% to 7,116 points, and Germany's DAX 30 gained 0.1% to 15,58 at that time.

While Italy's Borsa Italiana FTSE MIB 30 was up 0.3% at 25,430, Spain's IBEX 35 was at 8,775 with a 0.2% daily increase.