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Asia Minute: Regional Stock Markets Battered to Varying Degrees in 2016

Holly Golabek / Flickr
Holly Golabek / Flickr

It’s been another volatile week on global stock markets. Stock prices have rallied around the world today, although they’re still down since the start of the year.  And the declines have been even steeper in several Asia Pacific markets—but not all of them. HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute.

The global stock slide began before the New Year, and has had fits and starts---but for comparison’s sake; you can take a look at the last month.  Over that time, through Thursday’s close the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell nearly 9%… the technology focused NASDAQ down a little more, the broader S&P 500 down a little less.

Generally speaking, Asia has been hit harder—and it’s not just the Chinese market.  The Shanghai Composite is down nearly 20% over the past month….while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng is down 14%.

Morgan Stanley has a broad measure of the region—the Morgan Stanley Capital Index for Asia—down about 12% over the past month.  The Philippines main measure is down more than 11% over that time.  Japan’s Nikkei closed the week with a rally—but is still down nearly 10% for the month—about the same as Singapore.  Taiwan is off about 7%.

Those doing a little better over the past month include South Korea—off about 5.5%… While Pakistan and Australia are both down about 4%.  Indonesia and Malaysia are down less than 2%…Thailand down a little more than 1%.

The region’s relative winner over the past month: New Zealand—still down—but just by a fraction.

Bill Dorman has been the news director at Hawaiʻi Public Radio since 2011.
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