The global equity market meltdown hit India the least compared with other emerging equity markets in January. The Indian market shed 16% as against Russia?s 16.12% and China?s 21.40%. Standard & Poor?s said in a statement that the world?s equity markets lost a $ 5.2 trillion in January as emerging markets fell 12.44% and developed markets shed 7.83%.
Turkey was hit the hardest during January, losing 22.70%. Morocco and Jordan were the two markets that gained 10.17% and 3.11%, respectively. Only five emerging markets remained positive for the three month period ending January. Argentina and Taiwan slipped into the negative territory for the 12-month period.
Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst, Standard & Poor?s, said that there were few safe havens in January as 50 of the 52 global equity markets ended the month in negative territory, with 25 of them posting double-digit losses. ?High volatility, quick turnarounds in both the market and investor sentiment, and drastically lower stock prices prevailed throughout the month,? the global rating agency said.
Of 26 developed equity markets that posted negative returns in January, 16 lost at least 10% of their value. The January declines negated all previous market gains, leaving all of the developed markets in the red for the trailing three-month period. Only Argentina and Taiwan slipped into negative territory for the 12-month period.
Standard & Poor?s said that all ten GICS sectors posted losses in January in contrast to October and September when all ten were in positive territory. Information Technology posted a broad 11.57% influenced mostly to US losses (ex US -9.48%). The energy sector remained close behind at -11.45%. In general, non-US consumer related (discretionary and staples) issues did worse than their US counterparts, as did financials. Value (-6.98%) continued to outperform growth (-8.63%), although both declined for the month.
Asian Pacific growth dropped 15.95% and European value declined 17.05% for the three month period.
It may be mentioned here that these figures were released as part of Standard & Poor?s global stock market review, The World by Numbers.
