Not just U.S. stocks topped August trading in negative territory. Poor investor sentiment has also arrived in European markets. Only major stock markets in Asia gained marginally during August.
Asia’s yen strengthened slightly
Both Europe and the United States are still accompanied by a wave of sell-offs in stock markets. They have a fourth day of declines in a row and also end in the red for the whole of August. The New York Stock Exchange’s main index, the S&P 500, closed percent weaker compared with early August.
Europe is a little worse off. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange lost more than five per cent during August, similar to the London stock exchange. On the other hand, the Tokyo or Shanghai bourses, where their main indexes rose by more than a percent, credited a slight strengthening.
Investor expectations were different
In doing so throughout July, the world’s bourses seemed to have the worst behind them, having weakened consistently since the beginning of this year. But it was clearly only a temporary rally, as few could have imagined that inflation would rise in the eurozone or the United States yet. And that it will be necessary to tighten the monetary policy of central banks. But it happened, and investors are starting to get nervous.