VOA标准英语10月-Asia's Markets Follow Wall Street With Panic Sell
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Investors2 in Asia sold shares in a panic, following the lead of Wall Street. Most stock markets saw some of the biggest price declines the October 1987 share crash. As Ron Corben reports from Bangkok, attention is now on the meeting of Group of Seven finance ministers and central bankers in Washington to restore confidence to panicked markets. |
| An investor1 takes a nap at the share index at a private stock market gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 10 Oct 2008 |
Four major stock markets in Asia plunged3 more than seven percent Friday. Every share price index in the region was down sharply.
Vikas Kawatra, head of institutional research for Kim Eng Securities in Bangkok, says the speed of the market capitulation caught many off guard.
"We don't know how these fast-turning events are impacting which country and which bank and which insurance company - so it's all too scary at this stage and it would be quite naive4 to make any judgement on such sharp moves. It's fear and it's absolute fear," he said.
Kawatra says the rapid selling at least offers the hope the contagion5 may soon be over.
The bankruptcy6 of a real estate investment trust and insurer in Japan sent the Nikkei 225 stock average falling over nine percent. It has lost nearly 53 percent in a year.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng shed seven-point-two percent. Share prices on Philippine and Australian markets both closed over eight percent lower. In Seoul, the Kospi lost four percent and Mumbai's main BSE index sank seven percent.
Asia's sell-off followed the seven-percent loss on U.S. Dow Jones Industrial Average Thursday.
More than $6 trillion has been wiped off share markets this week as panic swept across the world.
Economists8 already are looking at the long-term fallout from the financial rout9. Most expect widespread recession for much of the coming year.
Sompop Manarangsan, an economist7 from Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, says countries in Asia, such as Thailand, where exports are key to economic growth, will be hit as the U.S. and European economies weaken.
"In the short term, the slump10 of the financial sector11 - particularly the stock market," said Sompop. "Longer term is the slowdown of exports - that [has] led to the slump of agricultural produce [prices]."
On Friday, key commodity prices continued to slide. Oil prices, $147 a barrel in July, traded at just over $82 - marking its biggest weekly decline since December 2004. Gold prices, however, were back up around $920 an ounce, the highest level in more than two months, as investors fled out of stocks and into precious metals.
The markets sank despite coordinated12 interest rate cuts this week by central banks and the pumping of billions dollars into money markets to encourage banks lend money, instead of hoarding13 cash.
Financial markets are looking to a meeting of finance ministers from the Group of Seven major industrialized countries meeting in Washington Friday for fresh guidance on restoring confidence.
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