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Asia Minute: Tough Quarter for Asia Pacific Investors

Wikipedia Commons
Wikipedia Commons

Today is not only the start of a new month, but on the corporate calendar, it’s also the first day of the fourth quarter of 2015.  And investors in Asia are hoping that means better days are coming.  HPR’s Bill Dorman has more in today’s Asia Minute.

The third quarter was a rough one for investors around the world.

Major US stock indices fell about 9% over the last three months - markets in Asia fell even harder.  The Shanghai stock index was down 25-percent—its worst quarter since 2008.  Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 20%.  Japan’s Nikkei and Indonesia’s Jakarta Composite: both off about 15% percent.  In fact, out of the top 15 stock markets in the Asia Pacific, only Sri Lanka managed to eke out a small gain—1.5%.  Mostly on political stability following elections there in August.

As the fourth quarter opens, some familiar regional worries are lingering—especially China’s slowing economy and a drop in demand for commodities.  Japan’s economy is on the brink of a recession, following this week’s announcements of slumping industrial production and business confidence.

India’s central bank is so worried about growth it slashed interest rates by a half a percentage point this week.  That’s the monetary equivalent of cutting with a meat cleaver rather than a scalpel.  And especially for emerging markets in Asia, the clock is ticking on the U-S Federal Reserve…waiting for the timing—and the impact--of an inevitable increase of U-S interest rates.

Bill Dorman has been the news director at Hawaiʻi Public Radio since 2011.
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