Following up on the more than 500 point loss on Wall Street last Friday, the Asian markets opened Monday to a meltdown in progress.
China’s Shanghai Composite Index tumbled as much as 9 percent, while U.S. equity-index futures signaled a fifth straight day of losses. Commodity prices sank to a 16-year low, while credit risk in Asia increased to the highest since March 2014. The yen rallied and government bonds rose as investors sought haven assets. South Africa’s rand dropped 2.7 percent.
More than $5 trillion has been erased from the value of global stocks since China unexpectedly devalued the yuan, fueling speculation that the slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy may be deeper than previously thought. The rout is shaking confidence that the global economy will be strong enough to withstand higher U.S. interest rates, even as bets on a September liftoff evaporate.
All major Asian markets dropped and futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index retreated as much as 3.1 percent after the U.S. benchmark plunged 5.2 percent through the final two days of last week.
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