Monday’s stock market collapses in Asia and Europe after China retaliated to steep US tariffs revived memories of similar market turmoil after the Covid pandemic and the last global financial crisis.Analysts called the falls “historic” and some even described it as a “bloodbath”, recalling previous collapses since the start of the last century.- 2020: Pandemic -Global stocks crashed in March 2020 after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, putting much of the world under lockdown. On March 12, 2020 — the day after the announcement — Paris fell 12 percent, Madrid 14 percent and Milan 17 percent. London dropped 11 percent and New York 10 percent in the worst fall since 1987.Further falls came over the following days, with US indexes dropping more than 12 percent.The rapid response by national governments, which dug deep to keep their economies afloat, helped most markets rebound within months.- 2008: Subprime crisis -The 2008 global financial crisis was caused by bankers in the United States giving subprime mortgages to people on shaky financial footing and then selling them off as investments, fuelling a housing boom.When borrowers became unable to pay their mortgages, millions lost their homes, the stock market crashed and the banking system buckled, culminating with the dramatic bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers.From January to October that year, the world’s main stock markets fell between 30 and 50 percent.- 2000: Dot.com bubble -The start of the millennium saw the deflation of the tech bubble caused by venture capitalists throwing money at unproven companies.From a record 5,048.62 points on March 10, 2000, the US tech-heavy Nasdaq index lost 39.3 percent in value over the year.Many internet startups went out of business.- 1987: Black Monday -Wall Street crashed on October 19, 1987, on the back of large US trade and budget deficits and interest rates hikes. The Dow Jones index lost 22.6 percent, causing panic on markets worldwide.- 1929: Wall Street collapse -October 24, 1929 became known as “Black Thursday” on Wall Street after a bull market imploded, causing the Dow Jones to lose more than 22 percent of its value at the start of trade.Stocks recouped most lost ground during the day but the rot set in: October 28 and 29 also saw huge losses in a crisis that marked the beginning of the Great Depression in the United States and a global economic crisis.burs-phz/lth

Hong Kong small-time investors were left reeling on Monday as US President Donald Trump’s punishing tariffs and Beijing’s retaliation saw the city’s stock market suffer its worst day in almost three decades.The benchmark Hang Seng Index fell by 13.2 percent — its biggest drop since 1997 during the Asian financial crisis — as a wider selloff played out across in Asian markets also spurred by China’s retaliatory levies.At a securities brokerage in Hong Kong’s finance district, where more than a dozen elderly investors stared at numbers flashing red on computer screens, the mood was grim.A woman in her nineties surnamed Tam said she “hated” Trump.”He cost me HK$200,000 ($25,700),” she said.”He’s nonsensical, he says one thing and changes his mind a few minutes later… How can someone in such a lofty position act like that?”None of the Hang Seng Index’s 83 constituent stocks escaped losses on Monday.Among the biggest losers were Lenovo Group, which plunged 23 percent, and Alibaba Group, down 18 percent.”(Trump) won’t let it go, he’s making a mess,” said another retiree surnamed Lee.”Everyone around me is losing money.”The Chinese finance hub resumed trading on Monday after a three-day break, which worsened the drawdown, according to Stanley Chik, head of research at Bright Smart Securities.”For Hong Kong equities, it is rare to see across-the-board losses to this extent,” Chik told AFP, though he said they were on par with how US markets reacted.Hong Kong’s stock market had outperformed the United States since Trump took office, but Monday’s rout wiped out HSI gains from the first quarter of this year.Investors in the city have taken a wait-and-see approach for weeks as Trump finalised his trade policies, Chik said, adding that the mood was not yet one of “despair”.Hong Kong tops the world in retail investor participation, with one 2023 survey showing that 48 percent of the respondents held or traded stocks in the preceding year.A 35-year-old man surnamed Tsang said his long-term investments lost around $12,900 on Monday, but he would not consider selling yet.”I didn’t expect it to get so bad,” said Tsang, a Hong Kong commercial bank employee.China A-shares may be more resilient, he added. “In this sort of fight (between China and the United States), it’s hard to say who will suffer more.”Lawyer Ray Chan, 30, was among those left unscathed on Monday, as he sold all his Hong Kong and US shareholdings two weeks ago, netting gains in the seven figures.”We’re clearly entering a bear market but I’m prepared,” Chan told AFP. “When (Trump) said there would be tariffs on April 2, I could guess where things were headed.”It will take “at least a year” before he returns to the market, Chan said.

A global stock market rout deepened on Monday, with Hong Kong crashing as US President Donald Trump stood firm on tariffs despite fears that his trade war could spark a recession.Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index sank 13.2 percent, its biggest drop since the 1997 Asian financial crisis, while Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell an eye-watering 7.8 percent. Countries mostly have been scrambling to blunt the new US tariffs without retaliating, but Beijing is responding in kind, escalating the trade war between the world’s two biggest economies.A 10-percent “baseline” tariff on imports from around the world took effect on Saturday but a slew of countries will be hit by higher duties from Wednesday, with levies of 34 percent for Chinese goods and 20 percent for EU products.Beijing announced last week its own 34-percent tariff on US goods, which will come into effect on Thursday.The tit-for-tat duties “are aimed at bringing the United States back onto the right track of the multilateral trade system”, Chinese vice commerce minister Ling Ji said.”The root cause of the tariff issue lies in the United States,” Ling told representatives of US companies on Sunday, according to his ministry.EU trade ministers will weigh their response at a meeting on Monday, with the bloc’s trade chief, Maros Sefcovic, telling reporters in Luxembourg that they were facing a “paradigm shift of the global trading system”.- Recession fears -Trump on Sunday doubled down on his demand to slash deficits with trading partners, saying he would not cut any deals unless that was resolved.”Sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” he said.He told reporters aboard Air Force One that world leaders were “dying to make a deal”.Trillions of dollars have been wiped off stocks worldwide since Trump announced the tariffs last week, and the losses deepened on Monday.Taipei recorded its heaviest loss on record as it sank 9.7 percent.In Europe, Frankfurt’s DAX sank as much as 10 percent in early deals before paring back losses. The German index and Paris were down over six percent in late morning deals, while London fell 4.5 percent.US markets were expected to open deep in the red later on Monday.The main US oil contract dropped below $60 a barrel for the first time since April 2021 on worries of a global recession.- ‘Deals and alliances’ -“(This) is blunt-force economic warfare,” said Stephen Innes at SPI Asset Management.”The market’s telling you in plain language: global demand is vanishing, and a global recession is on the cards and coming on fast,” Innes said.Trump’s staggered deadlines have left space for some countries to negotiate, even as he insisted he would stand firm and his administration warned against any retaliation.”More than 50 countries have reached out to the president to begin a negotiation,” Kevin Hassett, head of the White House National Economic Council, told ABC’s This Week on Sunday.Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, whose country faces a 24-percent levy, said on Monday that Tokyo would present Trump with a “package” of measures to win relief from US tariffs ahead of a mooted call between the leaders.Benjamin Netanyahu, prime minister of Israel — hit with 17 percent tariffs, despite being one of Washington’s closest allies — was due on Monday to become the first leader to meet Trump since last week’s announcement.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer warned in a newspaper op-ed that “the world as we knew it has gone”, saying the status quo would increasingly hinge on “deals and alliances”.Vietnam, a manufacturing powerhouse that counted the United States as its biggest export market in the first quarter, has already reached out and requested a delay of at least 45 days to thumping 46-percent tariffs imposed by Trump.- ‘Bad actors’ -US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told NBC’s Meet the Press that Trump has “created maximum leverage for himself”.”I think we’re going to have to see what the countries offer and whether it’s believable,” Bessent said.Other countries have been “bad actors for a long time and it’s not the kind of thing you can negotiate away in days or weeks”, he said.Trump and US officials have rejected arguments that the tariffs would reignite inflation and damage the US economy.Peter Navarro, Trump’s tariff guru, shrugged off investor panic.”You can’t lose money unless you sell,” he said, promising “the biggest boom in the stock market we’ve ever seen”.