Sunday, August 24, 2008

Asian stocks in a jittery!

Asian stocks are again in the doldrums and fell for the fourth week and touching the lowest point since July 2006 mainly due to fall of technology and banking shares. Samsung Electronic Corporation fell almost 4 per cent owing to rising US whole sale prices and decrease in housing rates. Sumitomo Financial Group Inc followed suit with a reduction of 6.9 per cent in its value.
Asia’s most profitable carrier Singapore Airlines too saw the southward trend with 2.5 per cent shave off. Rise in the cost of gasoline is cited as the major reason for losses of the airlines. Rising oil prices forced the consumers to become spendthrift and with a higher inflation come an increased commodity prices.
Japan’s Nikkei 200 stock average too dropped 2.7 per cent and the overall bench mark indices saw a reduction in most of the markets. The maker of the top selling video games, Nintendo, declined 5.2 per cent to 49,000 in Osaka.
Banks got the beating!
United States housing plummeted 11 per cent last month to its nadir in 17 years and the prices paid to the US producers in July rose to 1.2 per cent. Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers Holdings and Goldman Sachs Group Inc hope to write off a combined $6.5 billion in the third quarter.
Mr. Ben S. Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve outlined a proposal widely thought of as “ambitious” on Friday for overseeing the credit markets and preventing the return of the dreaded credit crisis and he described his efforts would involve an attempt by regulators to develop a more fully integrated overview of the entire financial system.
Nifty down
The Indian National Stock Exchange Index popularly called “Nifty” future lost 2.5 per cent over the week to close at 4324.1 points against the previous close of 4434.9. The Nifty August future is facing volatility with wild swings.

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