“La sabiduría de la vida consiste en la eliminación de lo no esencial. En reducir los problemas de la filosofía a unos pocos solamente: el goce del hogar, de la vida, de la naturaleza, de la cultura”.
Lin Yutang
Cervantes
Hoy es el día más hermoso de nuestra vida, querido Sancho; los obstáculos más grandes, nuestras propias indecisiones; nuestro enemigo más fuerte, el miedo al poderoso y a nosotros mismos; la cosa más fácil, equivocarnos; la más destructiva, la mentira y el egoísmo; la peor derrota, el desaliento; los defectos más peligrosos, la soberbia y el rencor; las sensaciones más gratas, la buena conciencia, el esfuerzo para ser mejores sin ser perfectos, y sobretodo, la disposición para hacer el bien y combatir la injusticia dondequiera que esté.
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES Don Quijote de la Mancha.
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24 de agosto de 2015
Stock Rout Spreads Through Europe After China Plunge
More than $5 trillion wiped from equity markets in two weeks
U.S. stock futures tumble as Nasdaq 100 hits daily 5% limit
A wave of selling gripped global markets as the rout in all but the safest assets deepened.
Chinese
shares tumbled by the most since 2007, stocks in Germany headed for a
bear market and commodities fell to a 16-year low. Russia’s ruble led a
selloff in emerging-market currencies, while the yen strengthened and
10-year Treasury yields slid below 2 percent for the first time since
April. Futures signaled the selloff in the U.S. will continue as the
Nasdaq 100 contract fell by its 5 percent daily limit where further
declines are barred.
“Everyone seems to be selling off, and there’s panic,” said
Michael Woischneck who helps oversee the equivalent of $7.1 billion at
Lampe Asset Management GmbH in Dusseldorf, Germany. “There’s no rational
choice anymore, no rational reaction. The Americans will add to the
European selling.”
More than $5 trillion has been erased from the
value of global equities since China unexpectedly devalued the yuan on
Aug. 11, fueling concern that the slowdown in the world’s second-largest
economy is worse than anticipated. The rout is shaking confidence that
the global economy will be strong enough to withstand higher U.S.
interest rates, even as bets ease on a September increase.
Trading
volume was more than double the 30-day average in Europe, where stocks
headed for the biggest drop since 2008. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index
slid 5 percent at 8:53 a.m in New York, the most since 2011.
Basic-resource producers led losses as Brent crude tumbled through $45 a
barrel. Treasury 10-year note yields fell as low as 1.97 percent.
“We’re definitely getting a lot of calls from clients,”
Michele Santangelo, a money manager at Vunani Private Clients, said by
phone from Johannesburg. “You’re seeing a lot of capitulation, people
selling for the sake of selling and wanting to get out of the market.”
Shares
in all but three companies fell in the Stoxx Europe 600 Index, driving
the gauge down 5 percent. Germany’s DAX Index retreated 4.5 percent,
taking the decline from its peak in April to more than 20 percent.
Standard
& Poor’s 500 Index futures dropped 3.6 percent. Investors are
selling their most-loved stocks, with Apple Inc. and Netflix Inc. losing
more than 4 percent in early New York trading.
The selloff will worsen, according to
Doug Ramsey, the chief investment officer of Leuthold Weeden Capital
Management LLC, whose quantitative research into market breadth,
valuation and investor sentiment foreshadowed the drubbing in American
stocks last week.
In Asia, the Shanghai Composite Index slid 8.5
percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index fell 5.8 percent, tumbling
further into a bear market. The measure is about 25 percent below an
April high, with a gauge of price momentum dropping to the lowest since
the October 1987 stock-market crash.
“This is a real disaster and
it seems nothing can stop it,” said Chen Gang, Shanghai-based chief
investment officer at Heqitongyi Asset Management Co.
Greater China equities plummeted, with Taiwan’s benchmark gauge dropping as much as 7.5 percent. More than $4 trillion was wiped from the value of Chinese equities from June 12 through Friday.
Commodities Slide
The Bloomberg Commodity Index fell 2.5 percent, heading for the lowest closing level since August 1999.
Brent
and West Texas Intermediate crudes both traded at six-year lows of
$43.65 and $38.76 a barrel, respectively. Gold, a haven for investors
during volatile trading, was little changed at $1,161.41 an ounce,
erasing earlier losses, while copper slipped 3.1 percent.
Currencies
of basic resource-producing countries led declines, with the ruble
tumbling 2.5 percent to 70.86 per dollar and Malaysia’s ringgit sliding
1.8 percent to a fresh 17-year low. South Africa’s rand dropped 2.1
percent and New Zealand’s currency weakened 1.8 percent.
Turkey’s lira retreated 1.2 percent. A deadline for a coalition government passed, putting the country on course for its second parliamentary election this year.
The
yen advanced with the euro as Treasuries rallied amid speculation the
global selloff will forestall the Federal Reserve’s first interest-rate
increase since 2006.
Japan’s currency jumped 1.8 percent to 119.95
per dollar, the strongest since May 19 and the euro climbed for a
fourth day against the dollar, strengthening to $1.15 for the first time
since February.
Fed funds futures now show a probability of a
December rate increase at 51 percent versus 61 percent on Friday. Bets
on the first increase in rates in almost a decade in September fell to
28 percent, down from 34 percent. The calculation is based on the
assumption that the effective fed funds rate will average 0.375 percent
after the first increase.
(An earlier version of this story misstated the gold price.)