Thread: World stocks plunge after China selloff

BangkokPost.com, Agencies

Tuesday's global market tumble continued on Wednesday, tracking the biggest fall on the Chinese stock market in a decade. Emerging markets wer taking the brunt of the hit on fears of another global sell-off.
US stocks gave back their entire 2007 gains. The US Dow Jones index plummetted by more than 400 points and London's FTSE 100 posted sharp losses.

The Thai SET Index on Tuesday dropped 4.75 points or 0.69 per cent to 690.47.

Early Wednesday, New Zealand's benchmark stock index tumbled 3 per cent, taking its lead from global markets.

The sell-off was sparked by a near-9% slide on the Shanghai Composite Index, as investors worried that China may pass rules to limit demand for stocks.

*gulp*

I cant get into my portfolio as for the first time that I have ever seen it says *server is too busy*

Just managed to log on.

aust market dropped around 3.5% but seems to have steadied now...

^^don't be too serious Memers...it only affects how many millions you have, not your "millionaire" status!..

Settlement isn't till July 1 so not a millionaire yet

great time to buy.....

Originally Posted by kingwillyhggtb

great time to buy.....

ok let me call my stockbroker and buy some shares.

you obviously know what you are talking about

only 1 of my shares went up today and that was a cotton producing farm.

Originally Posted by slimboyfat

Originally Posted by kingwillyhggtb

great time to buy.....

ok let me call my stockbroker and buy some shares.

you obviously know what you are talking about

I recommend investing heavily in ITV

I bought some shares of a US company called Macrosoft or something like that back in the early 80's, but I haven't really checked to see how they're doing - might have gone bust for all I know......

seems like i was right not to panic

October 19 on the corner of Wall and Broad, downtown New York -- back in 1987. The next chilling day Down Under.
At the time we thought it was a crash, the first since that other October day back in 1929. Which was followed by the Great Depression, World War II and a whole lot of all-round pain and suffering.
Two things made what happened in 1987 so disturbing. The distant memory of 1929 and what had followed.
And the belief that those sorts of things couldn't happen again. We were 'too clever'. We'd 'abolished' stock market crashes and economic depressions.
So no one knew what would follow. If the 'impossible' happens, how can you? Except that it had to be bad.
It is the exact opposite today. Hence my reversal of the famous Crocodile Dundee exchange. You call that a knife? This is a knife.
The reason is precisely because 1987 happened and we know what followed far from being bad, was actually good or at least benign.
The stock market quickly recovered, there and here. The economy was almost untouched, although both the US and Australia would slide into recession in 1990.
Indeed we can now see that what happened on that one day in 1987 really wasn't a crash, but more properly a correction.
The mother of all stock market corrections, certainly. But a shift that did not initiate a bear market; rather, that cleansed excesses and refreshed the market.
So if a 20-25 per cent one-day drop -- we did a little worse than Wall Street -- is properly characterised as a correction, just on the numbers it's hard to see a 3 per cent drop as particularly significant.
And it's not just 1987. We've been back to this sort of one-day shock a couple of times since. In the mid-1990s and most dramatically after 9/11.
That's in some ways even more emphatic in soothing perceptions about yesterday.
The attack on New York was not only devastating for the market, it had very direct and severe impacts on the real economy, both in the US and the world.
Yet what followed, certainly helped by some pretty dramatic policy action? Six years of very strong US and global economic growth, which seems to be resurging even again into 2007.
And equity markets going up, and up, and up again. Again, despite an 1987-type crash prior to 9/11 in tech stocks.
All that is by way of a general overview. We've survived and prospered after more dramatic and even devastating events.
Then you get to the specifics of yesterday. They add further indication that it will quickly fade from memory as just another, rather unremarkable, one-day wonder. More as in: I wonder what the hell all that was about?
First the cause: that near 10 per cent fall in the Shanghai market. Talk about corrections: this was giving back just a fraction of Shanghai's more than doubling in the space of barely a year and about one-third of its rise over the last few weeks.
But more critically the Chinese stock market has virtually no linkage to the spectacular Chinese economy -- which is the underpinning of the strong global economy. But also key to healthy global financial markets.
Unlike in the US and Australia, the Chinese economic miracle does not depend in any way on a strong or even just healthy local stock market. The miracle predates the market, so to speak.
So while the Chinese economy can certainly drive the world; indeed, we have to be driven by it.
The Chinese stock market can't. It's just a casino, where profits from the economy are played with.
Much like the Hong Kong market in the 1980s and 1990s had no strong linkage to the booming HK economy. Other than as a home for money generated by that economy.
Wall Street actually handled the shock remarkably well. Both technically in terms of processing orders, and in not feeding on a negative dynamic.
If it had been 1987 all over again, the slide would have been almost bottomless, with prices gapping down. In fact the market happily absorbed and cleared the sell orders.
And it did so when they were coming through at extraordinary pace -- apparently processing peaked at around 500,000 transfers per second.
Again, the very thing that many feared could cause a spiral, actually worked to stabilise, by avoiding any build up of sell orders. Something that could not have been achieved by human intervention.
JBWere Goldman Sach's chairman Terry Campbell sees yesterday as providing some great buying opportunities, especially in the resources sector which was whacked heavily off a relatively low starting base anyway.
Now the biggest qualification to this is simply that our market remains at extraordinarily high levels after yesterday.
It is still up nearly 3 per cent for the calendar year so far after the drop. At a near-20 per cent annualised rate, that would be another spectacular year.
Before yesterday it was up nearly 6 per cent -- an annualised rate close to 40 per cent; and certainly heading for a fall.
In contrast, Wall St -- before last night's likely kick-back -- was now down 2.3 per cent for the year so far. In my judgment, a healthy sign.
And while we are up a thumping 14.9 per cent since June last year, Wall Street is now up a more modest 9.76 per cent.
This is actually a good news/bad news story. It puts the fall in context. It just took a tiny bit of the cream back.
But that's the slightly worrying point. It only took a tiny bit of the cream back. Both our markets are still riding for a fall -- correction if you like.
Tuesday (in New York) and Wednesday (local) did not deliver it.

A crash is a buying oportunity, no more, no less.

If this is like 1987 all over again, the big crash is a couple of months away. I would sell at the end of March, then buy again when it all goes tits-up in April.

too late matey, its all back to normal.

I think Marms has a point tho'. when over valued markets start to tremor its time to go into conservative mode.

Originally Posted by kingwillyhggtb

too late matey, its all back to normal.

Every major market is back to normal?

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

Originally Posted by kingwillyhggtb

too late matey, its all back to normal.

Every major market is back to normal?

yup, normal in that asia is sliding again, blah blah blah.....

its called a correction.

^ I see you are as informed about financial markets as you are suitable marriage partners...

Originally Posted by Whiteshiva

Originally Posted by Marmite the Dog

If this is like 1987 all over again, the big crash is a couple of months away. I would sell at the end of March, then buy again when it all goes tits-up in April.

Personally, I'd wait until the afternoon of Wednesday April 11th, and then buy again just after the markets open un July 30th.

Companies that start with h, j and w are sure winners. Avoid companies with short managers at all costs! Also be careful with companies with blue and red logos, companies with rhyme with "squid" and any firm that has more than eight vovels in the name.

Follow these easy guidelines, and you'll all be millionaires by the end of the year.

Looks like you've been broking for the big names.