Asian Shares Plummet with China Markets Sliding amid Inflation and Ukraine Crisis

Asian shares plunged after U.S. inflation surged to the highest levels in about 40 years. Additionally, Chinese equity markets sank spurred by the U.S. listing of some firms in mainland China.

ING Singapore’s Chief Economist Rob Carnell said, "We've got a terrible macro backdrop (with) a serious inflation problem implying that we're going to see much, much tighter monetary policy." He also contended that the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and Russia is likely to increase prices of commodities including metals, energies, and agrarian goods, especially since another attempt at peace talks on Thursday failed.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped by 2% by mid-afternoon, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index slumped by 3.7% after Chinese stocks took a hit after the U.S. disbarred select Chinese companies. China’s blue chip index edged lower by 2.6% while Japan’s Nikkei and South Korean shares dipped by 2.4% and 1.1% respectively.

As per Reuters, the U.S. CPI data which was released yesterday revealed that inflation figures have surged to a four decade-high of 7.9%, while the ECB’s policy meeting led the central bank to adopt a more hawkish stance.

©Photo: Andy Wong/AP