Asian stocks plummeted for the second day on Tuesday, despite the fact that the Asia-Pacific stock gauge hit a two month peak only last week. As of 12:28pm in Hong Kong, the MSCI Asia Pacific Index had dropped 0.4 percent to 138.02, with the healthcare and technology sectors leading the decline.
American markets faced similar rocky waters, with the Nasdaq dropping 1.2 percent to 4,079, finishing its worst three day drop since November 2011. Both the S&P 500 and the Dow were down 1 percent, with tech shares shouldering the bulk of the drop, though analysts are beginning to predict a widespread bounce in the days ahead, amid concerns that the market will not accelerate sufficiently to counteract the Fed’s pullback from its quantitative easing program.
Japanese Markets
Although Japan’s current account balance became a surplus for the first time in five months, exports remain weak, leaving analysts worried that the reported 613 billion yen surplus isn’t enough to create confidence in a rebound. According to a poll of 29 analysts conducted by Bloomberg News, analysts had been predicting an average of a 618.1 billion yen surplus, which makes the current surplus fall below expectations, a sign that may prove skeptics right.