Samsung Shares Fell After Lee Left Prison

On Friday trade, Taiwanese and South Korean stocks led to declines with major Asia-Pacific markets with shares of firms linked to the falling of conglomerate Samsung.

In South Korea, the broader Kospi closed at 1.17% lower at 3,171.28, while in Taiwan, the Taiex dropped by 1.39% to finish the trading day at 16,982.12.

Shares of South Korean industry Samsung Electronics jumped by 3.39%, while Samsung C&T dropped 0.75%. Samsung Life Insurance also decreased by 0.38%, with Samsung SDS decreased by 1.97%.

Those losses happened after Vice Chairman of Samsung Electronics Jay Y. Lee left prison on Friday. Earlier this week, the justice ministry of South Korea announced that he had qualified for parole.

On its final hour of trading, Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index slid by 0.8%. Mainland Chinese stocks also started to decrease as the Shanghai composite fell by 0.25% to close at 3,516.35. Besides, the Shenzhen component decreased by 0.692% to finish the trading day at 14,799.04.

In Japan, the Nikkei 225 closed at 0.15% at its lower 27,977.16, while the Topix index improved by 0.16%, finishing the trading day at 1,956.38.

The S&P/ASX 200 bound by 0.55% higher in Australia, closing at 7,628.95 as investors viewed the coronavirus situation. It followed the current situation in Canberra, where new covid cases forced the country to enter a week-long lockdown from Thursday.

MSCI’s broadest index dropped by 0.75%.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 14.89 points to 35,499.86, while the S&P 500 increased about 0.4% to 4,460.84. The Nasdaq Composite improved by 0.36% to 14,816.27.

Currencies and oil

The U.S. dollar index is still above the level of 92.9.

The Japanese yen traded at 110.27 per dollar, which seems weaker than levels below 110.22 seen earlier this week. The Australian dollar switched hands at $0.735, above $0.737.