2024-08-05 11:20:42
Bigger drop in places. While Asian stock markets are in free fall this Monday, Tokyo marked the biggest loss of its existence while Seoul and Taiwan also experienced dizzying declines. Specifically: fears of a recession in the United States.
The flagship Nikkei index of the Japanese capital – the main stock index of the Tokyo Stock Exchange -, which had already fallen by 5.8% on Friday, fell by 12.4% to 31,458.42 points, falling by some 4,400 points during the session too, than before. a record which dates back to the October 1987 crash.
For its part, Taiwan’s Taiex index fell more than 8%, as did Seoul’s Kospi index, which fell 9.6% on Monday morning. Chinese stock markets, for their part, fell more moderately, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index down 2.7% and the Shanghai Composite index down 1.4%.
“Too many fires to put out”
It is impossible to hope for a recovery this Monday: “There are many fires to put out, especially with the renewal of recession fears – that is to say, the fall in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for at least minus the shares two in a row – in the United States and the prospect of a hard landing that has made global investors nervous,” commented Stephen Innes of wealth management firm, SPI Asset Management.
“What’s causing it? A US jobs report that missed the mark so badly that not only made jaws drop, but also stock markets and bond collections” on Wall Street, he added. In this report on work in the City United States, a worrying finding: the increase in the unemployment rate to the level of an epidemic and weak job growth in the private sector in 16 months.
Even before these alarming figures were published last Friday, the Tokyo Stock Exchange had experienced a dark day, with the Nikkei experiencing its worst drop in points since 1987 and the second sharpest drop in its history. . This record was just broken this Monday.
Fears of increasing tensions in the Middle East will also add to the market volatility, increasing threats from Iran and its allies to Israel, blamed by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah for the deaths, on Wednesday. last, from Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
Banks and Nintendo are in the red
This financial recovery after years of negative rates, combined with the slowdown in the American economy, especially in the wake of the rise of the yen, is also supported by interventions by the Japanese central bank on the foreign exchange market. The exchange rate movement is harmful for Japanese export companies, which have benefited from the fall of the Japanese currency.
Nintendo stock fell 16.52% after the Japanese video game giant saw its net profit fall in the first quarter, and maintained extremely conservative forecasts this Friday while its next console is not expected for several months.
Similarly, in Taiwan, chip giant TSMC lost 9.75%. The dollar, too, further deepened its losses, reaching its lowest since January at 142.35 yen last Friday morning, compared to 146.53 yen on Friday evening. The euro is worth 155.21 yen compared to 159.87 yen at the end of last week and is trading at 1.0904 dollars, compared to 1.0911 dollars on Friday.
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