Sydney to Shanghai: Sell, sell, sell
Updated: 2008-01-23 10:13
The MSCI index of Asia-Pacific stocks outside Japan fell as much as 8 percent on Tuesday, with India crashing nearly 13 percent at one point and Australia suffering its biggest one-day fall since 1989, ending down 7 percent.
"It's like a funeral in here," said Ken Masuda, senior equities dealer at Shinko Securities in Tokyo, where the Nikkei lost 5.7 percent in its biggest one-day drop since the September 11 attacks.
"No one knows what's going to happen tonight It's like we've gone blind, you don't know what's coming, all we can do is sell," Masuda said.
Frenzied trading by worried investors caused Australian online broker Commonwealth Securities' website to seize up, while the South Korean exchange suspended automated trading and India's market was suspended briefly.
Goh Seng Hiang, 70, a Singapore retiree, said he has lost about $34,428 so far this year. "The situation is bad, I'll be dead meat soon."
Waves of bad news have battered world markets since the US subprime mortgage crisis erupted last year, and its effects have spread into the real economy, hitting companies and investors. George Soros told an Austrian newspaper the world faces its worst financial crisis since World War II.
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