Sunday, December 22, 2024

Wall Street latest: Global stock markets plunge over fears of US slowdown

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Weak US jobs data has knocked on to several markets – investment specialistpublished at 14:19

In the next 15 minutes, the financial markets will open in New York and we’ll see if the huge selloff that’s been happening in Asian markets this morning is replicated in the US.

In just one day Japan’s Topix index lost more than 400 points – 12% of its value – its worst performance since black Monday nearly 40 years ago.

April La Russe is the head of Investment Specialists at Insight Investment, an asset management company.

Speaking to BBC’s World at One, she says the weak jobs data from Friday has knocked on to not only Asia, but all different markets.

“There’s been a big shift in market expectations about where we are in the economic cycle and if we’re actually seeing some slowing and what central banks should be doing about it,” she says.

After weak data from US and patchy data from Europe, she says markets began to think interest rates need to come down, faster than the markets were expecting.

Asked if there are concern of this degree of volatility and whether it leaves some companies exposed due to sharp swings in prices, she says it shouldn’t for the most part, and while earning numbers haven’t been as high as some analysts expected, companies are in good shape despite not growing as fast as previous.

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