Asia stock markets turn negative, Europe indices post record

ANKARA

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.