Global markets continue to dive

Shanghai index regains some ground but most Asia-Pacific bourses still plunging.

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Investors and traders are grappling with massive sell-offs and plunging prices [AP]
But shares across the Asia-Pacific continued to slide.
 
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index dropped 3.6 per cent.
 
In Japan, the Nikkei dropped 1.52 per cent to 17,826.36 at the start of trade on Wednesday, falling below 18,000 for the first time in nearly a week.
 
The broader Topix index plummeted 5.1 per cent to 1,719.15 soon after opening, pushing the bourse to temporarily halted trade in Topix futures.
 
Australia’s benchmark S&P/ASX200 index slumped 3.45 per cent in the first 30 minutes of trading.
 
Share prices opened 8.17 per cent lower in Malaysia and 4.82 per cent lower in Singapore in the first few minutes of trading.
 
South Korea’s Kospi index dropped 3.93 per cent, to 1,397.50 in the first 15 minutes of trading.
 
Damage control
 
The Shanghai Securities News said in a front-page report that the government had no plans to levy a tax on capital gains from stocks, citing unnamed spokesmen for the finance ministry.
 
The newspaper, run by the official Xinhua News Agency, is often used for official announcements.
 
The report came a day after Chinese shares took their biggest tumble in a decade, with benchmarks for both the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges falling by nearly 9 per cent and triggering losses worldwide.
 
Wall Street had its most dismal trading day since the September 11, 2001 attacks, with the Dow Jones industrial average losing 3.3 per cent to 12,216.24 on Tuesday.
 
Key European exchanges also fell about 3 per cent. The losses continued as markets opened on Wednesday.
 
The exact cause of Tuesday’s sell-off in China was unclear. Some analysts blamed profit-taking following recent gains: the market had hit a record high on Monday, with the Shanghai Composite Index closing above 3,000 for the first time.
 
Others pointed to comments by Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman, who warned in comments to a conference in Hong Kong that a recession in the US was “possible” this year.
 
Analysts also have been expecting further Chinese measures such as an interest rate hike, to prevent its economy from overheating.
Source: News Agencies