The situation in Russia and Ukraine has heated up. Russia has recognized the independence of the two regions in the east of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin even announced that he will send troops to the local peacekeeping.
The news triggered panic among investors. The three major U.S. index futures fell across the board on Monday, and the Dow futures fell more than 400 points on Monday.
Futures on the three major U.S. stock indexes remained down in Asian trading on Tuesday, with Asia-Pacific stocks also down in early trade.
【09:42】
The decline of Hong Kong stocks once intensified to more than 500 points, and then narrowed. The Hang Seng Index recently reported 23,793 points, down 376 points, the HSCEI reported 8,335 points, down 120 points, and the KSE Index reported 5,257 points, down 70 points.
Driven by the warming geopolitical situation, oil and gold prices rose.
Spot gold was last at $1,906.44 an ounce, up $0.15, while gold futures was at $1,909.5 an ounce, up 0.51%.
In terms of oil prices, Brent crude futures were at $97.17 a barrel, up 1.9%, while New York oil futures were at $94.2 a barrel, up 3.44%.
Gold and oil stocks rose along with oil and gold prices. Zhaojin (1818) rose 2.2%, Shandong Gold (1787) rose 1.5%, and CNOOC (0883) rose 1.2%.
【09:20】
The Hong Kong stock market opened 477 points lower, and lost another 24,000 points. The latest report was 23,692 points, the HSCEI reported 8,287 points, and 168 points, and the KSE Index reported 5,207 points, down 119 points.
Tencent (0700) opened 3% lower at 432.2 yuan, and Alibaba (9988) opened 5.1% lower at 109 yuan.
HSBC (0005), which will announce results today, opened 1.8% lower.
CNOOC (0883) opened 1.2% higher, driven by rising oil prices.
【09:08】
Dow futures were last at 33,681 points, down 88 points, S&P 500 futures fell 7 points to 4,286 points, and Nasdaq futures reported 13,716 points, down 28 points.
The Asia-Pacific stock market also fell with the outside world. Japanese stocks fell 416 points to 26494 points, South Korean stocks fell 26 points to 2716 points, and the Australian Common Stock Index fell 62 points to 7171 points.
Investors parked their funds in the dollar, with the dollar index up 0.03 percent at 96.11.
The yen was stronger against the dollar at 114.72.