ALL: article on hk and other international markets, from the ap wire:
Shares Plunge in Hong Kong
Filed at 12:48 a.m. EST
By The Associated Press
HONG KONG (AP) -- Shares plunged 15 percent Tuesday on the Hong Kong
Stock Exchange, dragged down by Wall Street's slump.
The blue-chip Hang Seng index opened sharply down and got steadily worse. By
noon, the index had crashed through the 9,000 point barrier, tumbling 15 percent,
or 1,554.83 points, to 8,943.37 points.
Before Tuesday's drop, the Hang Seng had fallen 22.8 percent in six trading
sessions.
Traders were nervous at the 10 a.m. (9 p.m. EST Monday) opening, having
awakened to news that the Dow Jones industrial average had fallen by 554.26
points, or 7.18 percent, to 7,161.15 on Monday. It was the Dow's biggest point
drop since the 508-point Black Monday crash of 1987.
Unlike the New York Stock Exchange, Hong Kong's market has no mechanism to
shut down trading in volatile circumstances.
Shares of HSBC Holdings PLC, the British-based banking giant and a major force
in the Hong Kong market, fell as much as 16 percent.
Property developer Cheung Kong, a closely watched flagship of Hong Kong
billionaire Li Ka-shing, lost 10 percent.
On Monday, shares slipped 2.6 percent on a key index at the London Stock
Exchange, Europe's biggest market, and tumbled on the New York Stock
Exchange.
The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 554 points for its biggest point loss
ever, automatically shutting trading on U.S. stock markets for the first time since
such rules were adopted in the aftermath of the 1987 crash.
Until last week's crash, Hong Kong had appeared a pillar of strength amid a region
teetering on weak national currencies. That changed when Hong Kong's currency --
the only one in the region still pegged to the U.S. dollar -- came under speculative
attack and government counter-measures sent interest rates soaring. This in turn
drove down stocks, especially in banking and real estate.
In Tokyo on Tuesday, the benchmark 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 620.88
points, or 3.6 percent, to close the morning session at 16,417.48 -- its lowest level
since July 1995.
On Monday, the Nikkei Stock Average lost 325.38 points, or 1.87 percent, closing
at 17,038.36 points -- the lowest in more than two years.
''People can't buy shares until (markets in) Asia stabilize,'' said Seiji Fujimoto, a
manager at the stock trading division of Tokyo Securities.
Share prices on the Korean Stock Exchange fell 32.23 points, or 6.1 percent, in
Tuesday's morning session, hitting 498.24 points, the lowest since 1992.
In Singapore, the key Straits Times Industrials Index was down 3.6 percent. In
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the benchmark Composite Index of 100 blue-chip stocks
fell nearly 6 percent. The Taiwan Stock Exchange Weighted Index fell 5.8 percent,
and the Philippine Stock Exchange Index fell 6.3 percent.
Australian share prices also dropped early Tuesday. Just before noon, the All
Ordinaries Index of share prices had tumbled 223.9 points, or 9 percent, to 2253.1,
down from Monday's close at 2477.0.
New Zealand stocks plummeted as well. The benchmark NZSE40 capital index fell
249 points, or 10 percent, to 2220, by midday Tuesday. The market opened after a
three-day holiday.
Stock markets plunged across Latin America from Mexico City to Buenos Aires on
Monday in a furious selling bout unleashed by Asia's currency crisis. In Mexico, the
key IPC index closed down 656.17 points or 13.3 percent, the largest single-day
drop in the index since the 1987 global stock market crash. |
