BEIJING: Chinese stocks tumbled again Tuesday after their biggest decline in eight years while most other Asian markets rebounded from a day of heavy losses.
The Shanghai Composite Index fell 6.4 percent in the first minutes of trading but later trimmed some of those losses and was down 5.5 percent at 3,035.83. The Shenzhen Composite Index for China’s smaller second exchange lost 4.6 percent.
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225, however, was up 2.1 percent at 18,147.42 after losing 4.6 percent the previous session. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, which also lost 4.6 percent on Monday, gained 1.3 percent to 21,429.17. Sydney’s S&P ASX 200 advanced 1.4 percent to 5,073.20 and Seoul’s Kospi was steady at 1,829.06 after shedding 3 percent the previous day.
China’s fall was the latest in a series of jarring declines that have defied multibillion-dollar government efforts to stem a slide in prices following an explosive market boom.
Monday’s 8.5 percent loss for the Shanghai index triggered a global selloff.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 3.6 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 fell 3.9 percent, putting it in correction territory, the term for a drop of at least 10 percent from a recent peak. In Europe, Germany’s DAX index fell 4.7 percent, France’s CAC-40 slid 5.4 percent and Britain’s FTSE 100 lost 4.7 percent.
“There was no clear catalyst for the global stock meltdown. The lack of clarity makes it difficult to assess what is needed to stem the rout,” said Bernard Aw of IG Markets in a report.
