Singapore, Aug 6: The sell-off in global markets continued on Monday as investors succumbed to the view that the US might be heading for recession, sending shares and other risky assets tumbling and leaving Japanese stocks suffering their worst day in 37 years.
Meanwhile, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 index soared nearly 11% early Tuesday, a day after it set markets tumbling in Europe and on Wall Street.
The rout, fuelled by fears that the US Federal Reserve has been too slow to react to a slowdown in the world’s strongest economy, was stoked on Friday by a weaker than expected jobs report. This added to investor concerns about the outsize influence of just a small handful of tech stocks — America’s Magnificent Seven — all of which fell sharply at today’s US open. Signs that the long American consumer boom may be over have also added to the mix. Other market reaction today included oil prices losing all of this year’s gains as the US growth concerns hit key commodities and a plunge in cryptocurrency prices. US and European equities pared back some of their losses later in the day after encouraging data on US services eased some of the fears of recession. The Fed kept rates on hold last week, but the severity of the reaction to the jobs data suggests investors believe the central bank may have made a mistake in not announcing a reduction. Markets are now betting on 1.25 percentage points of cuts by the end of the year, as well as a possible unscheduled emergency cut before the Fed’s next meeting in September.
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