Global mkts tumble, Tokyo leads Asian rout

Bracing for a highly anticipated employment report coming on Friday, the future for the S&P 500 was down 0.9 per cent, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5 per cent. A nearly 19 per cent decline in Intel’s shares in aftermarket trading deepened the gloom. The chipmaker said it was cutting 15% of its massive workforce — about 15,000 jobs — to better compete with more successful rivals like Nvidia and AMD

Bangkok: World shares tumbled Friday, with Japan’s Nikkei 225 index slumping 5.8 per cent as investors panicked over signs of weakness in the US economy.The declines followed a retreat on Wall Street after weak data raised worries the Federal Reserve may have missed its window to lower interest rates before they undercut economic growth. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said a cut could come in September after the US central bank held steady at a meeting this week.

“The short-lived satisfaction of Fed Chief Powell communicating decent odds of a September rate cut has turned sour as investors are now panicking that the central bank isn’t trimming soon enough,” José Torres, a senior economist at Interactive Brokers, said in a report.

Bracing for a highly anticipated employment report coming on Friday, the future for the S&P 500 was down 0.9 per cent, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.5 per cent. A nearly 19 per cent decline in Intel’s shares in aftermarket trading deepened the gloom. The chipmaker said it was cutting 15 per cent of its massive workforce — about 15,000 jobs — to better compete with more successful rivals like Nvidia and AMD.

In early European trading, Germany’s DAX shed 1.4 per cent to 17,834.67, while the CAC 40 slipped 0.7 per cent to 7,315.93. In London, the FTSE 100 fell 0.4 per cent to 8,245.92. Japan’s market retreated to where it was trading in January before surging to an all-time high last month of over 42,000. The Nikkei 225 lost 2,216.63 points to 35,909.70, with banks’, technology-related and manufacturers’ shares hit by heavy selling. The Nikkei has lost 6.2 per cent in the past three months. Japanese shares were pummelled after the central bank raised its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday, to 0.25 per cent from 0.1 per cent.