High inflation, the war in Ukraine and rising interest rates have hammered stocks
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange in Hong Kong, China. Picture: BLOOMBERG/BERTHA WANG
Japan’s Nikkei skidded 1.6% and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index fell 1.4% while Chinese stocks dipped 0.3%. “August has been a terrible month for balance fund investors with no diversification gains from holding a portfolio of equities and bonds,” Rodrigo Catril, senior FX strategist at National Australia Bank, said in a note to clients.
Overnight, Cleveland Fed president Loretta Mester said the US central bank would need to boost interest rates somewhat above 4% by early 2023 and hold them there to bring inflation back down to the Fed’s goal, and that the risks of recession over the next year or two had moved up.