China’s ‘Black Monday’ spreads stock market fears worldwide

 

24 Aug 15

 

Years of bailouts and monetary expansion have created one of the most inflated and artificial economic booms in history, and now it appears that this global economic bubble is deflating. 

 

BEIJING — Stock market jitters spread throughout Asia and the rest of the world, and Wall Street braced for a major plunge, after Chinese stocks recorded their biggest slump in eight years during what China’s state media dubbed “Black Monday.”

The collapse in Chinese stocks was fueled by mounting concerns about an economic slowdown here, but it has fed into a wider sell-off in emerging markets. Asian shares hit a three-year low Monday, and the nervousness appeared likely to spread to Wall Street after last week’s sharp falls there.

“A lot of questions are being asked by investors,” said Chris Weston, chief markets strategist at IG in Melbourne. “This is a confidence game, and when you don’t have confidence, you press the sell button.”

Shanghai’s main share index closed down 8.49 percent, but trading in hundreds of shares was suspended after they lost 10 percent.

The Shanghai Composite Index has fallen by nearly 40 percent since June, after rising more than 140 percent last year. Tokyo’s Nikkei-225 index recorded its biggest drop in more than two years, falling 4.6 percent to a six-month low, while the MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan sank 5.1 percent to a three-year low.

 

We warned on Friday, after last week’s China rout, that the market is getting ahead of itself with its expectation of a RRR-cut by China as large as 100 bps. “The risk is that there isn’t one.” We were spot on, because not only was there no RRR cut, but Chinese stocks plunged, with the composite tumbling as much a 9% at one point, the most since 1996 when it dropped 9.4% in a single session. The session, as profile overnight was brutal, with about 2000 stocks trading by the -10% limit down, and other markets not doing any better: CSI 300 -8.8%, ChiNext -8.1%, Shenzhen Composite -7.7%. This was the biggest Chinese rout since 2007.

The worst news is that the 3,500 level in the SHCOMP which until recently had been seen as a “hard barrier” for the PBOC, has now been breached, and not only is the Shanghai Composite red for the year after being up 60% a little over 2 months earlier (don’t worry though: just like on Yahoo Finance Twitter everyone took profits at the highs), but nobody knows why the Politburo let stocks tumble and worst of all, how much further will it allow stocks to drop.

Elsewhere in Asia, equity markets traded with significant losses on what is being referred to as ‘black Monday’ amid increased growth concerns coupled with commodities falling to fresh 6 year lows and US stocks in correction, sparked a further sell-off in the region . The ASX 200 (-4.1%) declined by the most in 4 years, Nikkei 225 (-4.6%) and Hang Seng (-5.2%) also saw considerable losses with energy dragging the index lower. 10yr JGBs saw relatively muted trade and are up by 3 ticks.

Risk averse sentiment has dominated the price action in both Asia and Europe as the week kicks off, with Chinese equities again under heavy selling pressure as market participants were left disappointed by the lack of action by the PBOC to ease monetary conditions further. As a result, equity indices in Europe opened sharply lower (Euro Stoxx: -2.3%) and in spite of coming off the worst levels of the session, remain broadly lower, with materials and energy sectors underperforming amid the continued slump in commodity prices. The Dax was well below 10,000 at last check. READ MORE

 

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