Asian Markets Fall on Fears of Global Slowdown

The European and USA markets ended firmly in the red and the Asian bourses figure to open in similar fashion.

Trading in the rest of Asia was lighter than usual with the region’s biggest market, Japan, closed until Wednesday for public holidays.

China stocks rebounded for the second day on Tuesday, in a further sign of improving investor sentiment that may help the market gradually stabilise after the rout since mid-June.

China’s Shanghai Composite Index closed 2.2% down, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 2.3%.

Among other indexes, the benchmark CSI300 Index tanked 2.2 percent. Battered banks also rose broadly, with NAB, Commonwealth, ANZ and Westpac closing up between 0.1 percent and 0.8 percent.

Small caps reversed the losses in morning trade with Shenzhen’s start-up board ChiNext gaining 0.2 percent at the close.

Analysts are calling for the Central Bank of the Republic of China (CBC) to finally give in to a rate cut at its quarterly policy meeting on Thursday, after having kept its policy interest rate at 1.875 percent since 2011, amid stuttering external demand.

In its “blue book” report, the academy said that China’s financial markets needed more time to develop and transform, according to Shanghai Securities News. Total trading volume of companies included in the HSI index was 1.5 billion shares. TPG Telecom fell 4.6 percent after reporting its full-year results.

Affected by currency strength and sluggish retail sales, Hong Kong is set to see 1 percent growth next year, which would be the worst since 2009, UBS forecast.

Concerns over China’s economic growth continued to dominate investors’ decisions. CKH Holdings lost 1.65 percent to 101.5 HK dollars.

Elsewhere, the Taiwan Weighted advanced 0.7 percent, while the benchmark indexes in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore were down between 0.4 percent and 0.9 percent.

Gold-related counters similarly came under pressure as the price of the precious metal eased 1 percent on Tuesday. On the economic front, a gauge of existing-home sales fell more than expected in August to post its first decline in four months as tight supplies and rising prices discouraged potential buyers.