What a day.
It’s been a remarkable start to the week for Asian markets. Stocks across the region tumbled. In China they fell, then subsequently rallied, only to fall again. Safe haven bonds and currencies have been well supported and, through it all, we’re no closer to knowing whether it will continue tomorrow.
Greece is undeniably the catalyst behind the surge in risk aversion.
Here’s the regional scoreboard just after 5pm Sydney time (8am GMT):
Stocks
Nikkei 225 20,109.95 (-2.28%)
ASX 200 5422.50 (-2.22%)
KOSPI 2,060.49 (-1.42%)
Shanghai Composite 5054.85 (-3.29%)
Straits Times 3,275.94 (-1.35%)
Hang Seng 25,799 (-3.27%)
US and European Stock futures
S&P 500 2,070.15 (-1.17%)
German DAX 10,978.50 (-4.51%)
UK FTSE 6,543.3 (-2.15%)
It’s been a day of heavy losses, and in the case of Chinese stocks, incredible intraday volatility. The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo closed down 2.88%, its largest percentage decline since January 6 this year, while the ASX 200 in Australia slumped a further 2.22%, taking its year-to-date gain to just 0.2%. The KOSPI in South Korea slid 1.42% while the Straits Times index in Singapore, in late trade, is lower by 1.30%.
While regional markets opened lower and stayed there, that can’t be said for Chinese stocks. After opening up more than 1% they subsequently tanked, again, with the Shanghai Composite falling as much as 7.50% before bouncing back into positive territory.
No, that’s not a typo.
With the initial rise and subsequent fall, the intraday trading range for the index was 10.07% of Friday’s closing level. In percentage terms, this is the largest daily range recorded since February 20, 1997.
The Shanghai Composite eventually finished the session down 3.3% with the CSI 300 and ChiNext, China’s tech-heavy index, down 3.3% and 8% respectively.
As the tables below show, the risk aversion expressed by stocks has filtered through to the price action in safe haven currencies, bonds and commodities:
Forex
EUR/USD 1.1069 (-0.85%)
EUR/CHF 1.0366 (-0.62%)
EUR/JPY 135.87 (-1.79%)
USD/JPY 122.72 (-0.91%)
GBP/USD 1.5734 (-0.10%)
AUD/USD 0.7658 (0.00%)
10-Year Government Bond Yields
Japan 0.446% (-0.028%)
Australia 2.964% (+0.041%)
US 2.324% (-0.152%)
Germany 0.733% (-0.187%)
UK 2.19% (+0.002%)
Commodity Futures
Gold $1,182.80 (+0.82%)
Brent Crude $62.33 (-1.35%)