Asian markets suffer bloodletting after overnight Wall St. fall
HONG KONG (AFP) – Asian markets went into freefall Thursday, tracking a plunge on Wall Street, with trading floors awash with negativity on geopolitical concerns and following weak US economic and earnings data.
The bloodletting is the latest to hit global equities, which have been pummeled this year by a wave of problems led by the China-US trade war and rising Federal Reserve interest rates.
On top of those in recent weeks has been a brewing nuclear standoff between the US and Russia, the killing of a Saudi journalist, Brexit and Italy’s budget row with the European Union.
US stocks have broadly managed to avoid the hefty selling witnessed elsewhere -- even clocking up a few record highs -- thanks to a strong economy and mostly positive corporate results.
The Dow and the S&P 500 wiped out their gains for the year, while the Nasdaq dived more than four percent as the under-pressure tech sector took another beating.
The selling came after data showed US home sales were at their slowest pace for nearly two years, while the Fed said firms nationwide are worried about the tariffs as well as labor shortages.
And those losses filtered through to Asia, where Tokyo’s Nikkei plunged more than 3.7 percent on Thursday, after a punishing session on Wall Street that saw major US indices wipe out all their 2018 gains.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index gave up 3.72 percent or 822.45 points to 21,268.73 while the broader Topix index lost 3.10 percent or 51.15 points, to 1,600.92.
Australia’s leading share index tanked Thursday, wiping out this year’s gains as traders tracked a global sell-off, with financial services giant AMP plunging almost 25 percent.
The benchmark S&P/ ASX200 ended 2.83 percent down at 5,664.10, its lowest since October last year.