The week starts well for German stocks.

The hope for a ceasefire in Ukraine caused the market-wide FAZ index to rise by 2.8 percent to 2396 points on Monday.

The Dax gains just as strongly to 14,023 points.

Martin Hock

Editor in Business.

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It turns out that the markets are very monothematic.

The development of the pandemic hardly seems to play any role.

The fact that this is not over is evident in other parts of the world.

China's CSI 300 index fell more than 3 percent on Monday, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng fell almost 5 percent.

China has locked down the technology and port city of Shenzhen with its 17.5 million inhabitants.

For the first time since 2020, an entire province was sealed off with Jilin.

As a result, in addition to the semiconductor company Umicron, the Apple supplier Foxconn also has to stop production.

In Hong Kong, which is close to Shenzhen, the number of cases has recently increased rapidly.

The hardest hit were those stocks that typically suffer the most from a pandemic, such as tourism stocks like Air China, but also breweries like Tsanttao or the advertising marketer Focus Media.

Zhiwei Zhang, chief economist at asset manager Pinpoint, warned that lockdowns would dampen growth in the world's second-largest economy, at least in the coming months.

But the Covid outbreak isn't the only reason the CSI-300 is down 18 percent year-to-date.

The country's economic growth has been faltering for some time, with lending figures showing an unexpected slowdown on Friday and an indicator on the mortgage market also falling for the first time in 15 years.

This also caused the yuan to depreciate significantly from Friday, despite the National Bank lowering reserve requirements for most banks.

The Ukraine war is also having a negative impact.

The decline in the Hang Seng Index was due not least to the warning from the USA that China would face serious consequences if the government helped Russia to circumvent western sanctions.

A report had circulated that Russia had asked China for military support.

Doing the USA seriously when in doubt is not doubted.

The Securities and Exchange Commission last week named the first Chinese companies listed in America that it wants to take action against because they do not want to disclose their books.

The Hang Seng is already in a massive bear market.

It is now down 37 percent from its most recent high 13 months ago.

Alibaba lost 11 percent on Monday, Tencent almost 10 percent.

In the latter case, it also plays a role that, according to the "Wall Street Journal", the payment service Wechat Pay, which belongs to Tencent, could face a fine for disregarding the regulations of the Chinese central bank.

There is currently no positive impetus for Chinese stocks, says Bloomberg strategist Marvin Chen.

To do this, the tone of regulation must change.

Since the intensified campaign against private technology companies began in China, shares have fallen 72 percent so far, Bloomberg reports.

That's almost as good as the Nasdaq Composite Index's losses during the 2000 dot.com crisis.

Tencent's latest business figures have clearly shown the burden of tightened regulation.

The days of big wins are over for China's mobile internet companies, according to Bloomberg Sun Jianbo, president of China Vision Capital Management.

In fact, expectations for Chinese tech stocks have been positive lately, with observers expecting an easing of Chinese monetary policy to benefit them.

With valuations low, some strategists are now recommending entry.

Nothing has changed fundamentally in the business models.

There is also speculation at the moment about an interest rate cut that the Chinese National Bank could use to stimulate weakening growth.