Skip to main content

Shanghai slump & the midday report

A large drop in the high-flying Shanghai Composite index has prompted investors to sell shares on Wall Street and in international markets today, as investors bail out of US and emerging market stocks.

The drop in Chinese shares was also enough to bring worries of a possible US recession and international conflict over Iran to the fore. FT.com reports:

Wall Street stocks fell sharply in early trading as a slump in China’s main stock index encouraged investors to sell riskier assets.

The biggest drop for the Shanghai Composite in a decade prompted a broad sell-off in US stocks that hit most severely at the materials, financials and consumer discretionary sectors.

Disappointing US economic data and news of falling house prices added to the markets’ anxiety and dragged the Dow Jones Industrial Average briefly into negative territory for the year.

“There are multiple catalysts driving this market lower, not least China,” said Arthur Hogan, chief market analyst at Jefferies & Co.

“There is plenty to be concerned about in a market that hasn’t taken a breather in a while. It looks like a well-contained sell-off.”

Video from FT's "Daily View" provides added commentary on the day's action.

Bloomberg weighed in on the recent correction with their report, "Emerging-Market Stocks Slide Following Plunge in Chinese Shares".

As the title suggests, Bloomberg's report on the fallout from China's market turmoil was largely focused on the impact to international and emerging-market shares. The full spectrum of opinions are offered regarding the importance of this correction; some are firmly in the "healthy correction" camp, while others are undecided.

Marc Faber, who for months now has been wary of the action in all asset and financial markets, is now shunning the emerging market shares.

``I wouldn't buy'' in emerging markets, said Marc Faber, a Hong Kong-based investor who manages about $300 million and who predicted the U.S. stock market crash in 1987. ``Something has changed in the financial market: It's the time to sell rallies rather than buy dips.''

The rout has also led to a bit of a shake up in the emerging-market debt and currency markets.

Emerging-market bonds and currencies fell as a tumble in Chinese stocks curbed investor demand for riskier assets.

The average spread for emerging-market bonds over U.S. Treasuries rose to the highest since Jan. 9 after China's main stock market index sank 9.2 percent, the biggest drop in a decade. Brazil's real, Turkey's lira and the South African rand led a slump in developing-nation currencies.

``It started off with China and then with U.S. stocks, which is leading to risk-averse behavior,'' said Matias Silvani, who helps manage $4.7 billion of emerging-market debt at JPMorgan Asset Management in New York. ``In times like these, correlation across markets increases.''

Emerging-market bond yield spreads surged 8 basis points to 1.8 percentage points at 11:49 a.m. in New York, leaving them up 16 basis points from a record low of 1.64 points on Feb. 22, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s EMBI Plus index. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.

Risk appetites are being quickly reexamined. Stay tuned for more.

Popular posts from this blog

Clean Money - John Rubino: Book review

Clean Money by John Rubino 274 pages. Hoboken, New Jersey John Wiley & Sons. 2009. 1st Edition. The bouyant stock market environment of the past several years is gone, and the financial wreckage of 2008 is still sharp in our minds as a new year starts to unfold. Given the recent across-the-board-declines in global stock markets (and most asset classes) that have left many investors shell-shocked, you might wonder if there is any good reason to consider the merits of a hot new investment theme, such as clean energy. However, we shouldn't be too hasty to write off all future stock investments. After all, the market declines of 2008 may continue into 2009, but they may also leave interesting investment opportunities in their wake. Which brings us to the subject of this review. John Rubino, author and editor of GreenStockInvesting.com , recently released a new book on renewable energy and clean-tech investing entitled, Clean Money: Picking Winners in the Green Tech Boom . In Clean ...

Slate profiles Victor Niederhoffer

Slate's recent profile of writer/speculator, Vic Niederhoffer has been getting some attention from traders and finance types in recent days. I thought we'd take a look at it here too, to offer up some possible educational value from Vic's experiences with trading and loss. Here's an excerpt from Slate's profile of Victor Niederhoffer : " I've enjoyed getting your e-mails. It sounds like you've thought a lot about being wrong. Well, the reason you contacted me, to call a spade a spade, is that I'm sort of infamous for having made a big, notorious, terrible error not once but twice in my market career. Let's talk about those errors. The first was your investment in the Thai baht, which pretty much wiped you out when the Thai stock market crashed in 1997. I made so many errors there it's pathetic. I made one of my favorite errors: "The mouse with one hole is quickly cornered." That is key. There are certain decisions you make in li...

Seth Klarman: Margin of Safety (pdf)

Welcome, readers! Signup for free email updates at the Finance Trends Newsletter . Update: PDF links removed due to DMCA notice. Please see our extensive Klarman book notes below. New visitors, please check the Finance Trends home page for all new posts. Here's something for anyone who has been trying to get a look at Seth Klarman's now famous, and out of print, 1991 investment book, Margin of Safety .  My knowledge of value investing is pretty much limited to what I've read in Ben Graham's The Intelligent Investor (the book which originally popularized the investment concept of a "Margin of Safety"), so check out the wisdom from Seth Klarman and other investing greats in our related posts below. You can also go straight to Ronald Redfield's Margin of Safety book notes .    Related posts: 1. Seth Klarman interviews and Margin of Safety notes     2. Seth Klarman: Lessons from 2008 3. Investing Lessons from Sir John Templeton 4. ...