|
 On Wall Street, the benchmark S&P 500 stock index tumbled 2.0
percent on the day, and ended the week down 2.6 percent, its worst
week since June 2012.
Concerns about slower growth in China, reduced support from U.S.
monetary policy and political problems in Turkey, Argentina and
Ukraine drove the selling.
The Turkish lira hit a record low as the cost of insuring against a
Turkish default rose to an 18-month high. Argentina's peso fell
again after the country's central bank abandoned its support of the
currency.
The declines mirror moves from last June when developing country
stocks fell almost 18 percent over about two months and hit global
shares after the Federal Reserve indicated it would soon reduce its
bond-buying.
"The world is suffering from the emerging markets' flu," said
Michael James, managing director of equity trading at Wedbush
Securities in Los Angeles.
The broad nature of the selloff combines country-specific problems
with the reality that reduced U.S. Federal Reserve bond buying
reduces the liquidity that has in the past boosted higher-yielding
emerging markets assets.
The Fed last month pared its monthly purchases of bonds by $10
billion to $75 billion. The U.S. central bank will hold a policy
meeting on Tuesday and Wednesday and is widely expected to again
pare its stimulus program.
"We expect the emerging market selloff to get worse before it starts
getting better," said Lorne Baring, managing director of B Capital
Wealth Management in Geneva. "There's definitely contagion spreading
and it's crossing over from emerging to developed in terms of
sentiment."
Activity was heavy in exchange-traded funds focused on emerging
markets. The iShares Morgan Stanley EM ETF was the second-most
active issue in New York trading, trailing only the S&P 500's
tracking ETF.
An MSCI index of emerging market shares fell as much as 1.6 percent.
Since mid-October, the index has lost more than 9.0 percent. The
MSCI all-country world equity index was down 2.3 percent for the
week, its worst since June.
Funds have continued to flee emerging market equities. In the week
ended January 22, data from Thomson Reuters Lipper service showed
outflows from U.S.-domiciled emerging market equity funds of $422.41
million, the sixth week of outflows out of the last seven.
Emerging market debt funds saw a 32nd week of outflows out of the
last 35, with $200 million in net redemptions from the 250 funds
tracked by Lipper.
[to top of second column] |
"It's just the final realization that they can't continue to grow as
an economy the same way they did before," said Andres Garcia-Amaya,
global market strategist at J.P. Morgan Funds in New York. "It's a
combination of less liquidity for these countries that depended on
foreign money and China kind of throwing some curve balls as well."
U.S. stocks sank, with the Dow Jones industrial average ending
down 318.24 points, or 1.96 percent, at 15,879.11. The Standard &
Poor's 500 Index was down 38.17 points, or 2.09 percent, at
1,790.29. The Nasdaq Composite Index was down 90.70 points, or 2.15
percent, at 4,128.17.
In a signal that the selling of stocks may be overextended,
investors were willing to pay more for protection against a drop in
the S&P 500 on Friday than for three months down the road. The last
time the spread between the CBOE volatility index and three-month
VIX futures turned negative was in mid- October, shortly after a 4.8
percent pullback in the S&P 500 opened the door to the last leg of
the 2013 market rally.
European shares suffered their biggest fall in seven months. The
FTSEurofirst 300 index of top European shares closed down 2.4
percent at 1,301.34 points. The index has now erased all its gains
for 2014, and is down 1.1 percent on the year.
Spain's IBEX index, highly exposed to Latin America, was the
worst-hit in Europe, falling 3.69 percent.
The dollar index was flat, a day after falling 0.9 percent against a
basket of major currencies, including the euro, yen, Swiss franc and
sterling. That was its worst one-day performance in three months.
A flight to safety lifted currencies backed by a current account
surplus, such as the Japanese yen and Swiss franc, and highly rated
government bonds. German Bund futures rose and 10-year U.S. Treasury
yields hit an eight-week low below 2.75 percent.
Gold hit a two-month high, gaining for a fifth straight week, as
weaker equities burnished its safe-haven appeal. Spot gold rose to
as high as $1,272.70 from $1263.95 on Thursday.
(Reporting by Barani Krishnan;
additional reporting by Dan Bases and Toni Vorobyova; editing by
Nigel Stephenson, Nick Zieminski, Leslie Adler and Meredith Mazzilli)
[© 2014 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2014 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. |
