Asian markets close day in negative territory

By Aysu Bicer

ANKARA (AA) – Amid inflationary pressures and concerns over the omicron variant of coronavirus, all major shares in Asia dropped on Monday.

The Asia Dow, which includes blue-chip companies in the region, fell 66.42 points, or 1.78%, to close at around 3,669 points.

Tokyo's Nikkei 225 stock exchange was down 608 points, or 2.13%, to 27,937.

The Hang Seng, the benchmark for blue-chip stocks trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange, fell 447.77 points, or 1.93%, to 22,744.

China's Shanghai stock exchange was down 38.76 points, or 1.07%, to 3,593, while the Indian Sensex benchmark plummeted 1,358 points, or 2.38%, to close at 55,653 points.

China's central bank cut interest rates for the first time since April 2020, after the "hawk" stance of the US and UK central banks last week.

The People's Bank of China reduced the loan interest rate, which is taken as the policy rate, by 5 basis points, to 3.80%.

The bank's move came after it injected 1.2 trillion Chinese yuan ($174 billion) of liquidity into the market last week via the reserve requirement step.

The Singapore index also fell 8.70 points, or 0.28%, to 3,120.