Asian stocks sink on U.S. turbulence, weak China growth

Gold, a traditional safe haven in times of turmoil, rose more than 1 per cent. Besides collapsing oil prices, fears of a slowdown in China, the world’s second-largest economy and a key market for U.S. companies, has also weighed on equities and commodities, leading to turbulent start to the year on Wall Street.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 2.8 percent to 1,834.25 at 11:42 a.m.in NY, the most in more than four months and on track for its lowest level since April 2014. After dropping more than 550 points in early trading, a surge in buying trimmed losses on the Dow Jones averages to just 240 points heading into the final 15 minutes of trading. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite began the day down 67 points, or 1.5%, at 4,411. Already, dozens of oil companies have filed for bankruptcy.

Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 fell 3.7 percent to 16,420.81 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng retreated 3.5 percent to 18,953.96.

Asian stocks surrendered all of Tuesday’s rare gains with MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan falling three per cent on the day and hitting its lowest since October 2011.

Tiffany & Co. and Amazon.com Inc. slumped more than 4.1 percent as retailers in the benchmark were on pace to reach their worst level since April. The February contract, which expires Wednesday, fell 96 cents to $28.46 on Tuesday in New York Brent crude, a benchmark for worldwide oils, lost 57 cents to $28.19 in London. Bellwethers Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet and Microsoft were down between 1.5 percent and 4 percent.

Platinum futures were down 1.2% at $820.60 an ounce. Chevron fell 2.58 percent. (GS) slid 2.5% after the Wall Street bank reported a sharp slide in fourth-quarter profit (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/goldman-sachs-profit-hurt-by-massive-settlement-2016-01-20). The price range of the company is from $0.45 to $1.13 with the earning per share (EPS) is $-1.71.

Johnson & Johnson rose 0.5 percent as it announced it will cut 3,000 jobs to save costs in its medical devices business.

Mr Pace said he’s closely monitoring developments in the labor market, especially in hard-hit sectors like energy, and updates on consumer spending, which drives the United States economy. The Nasdaq dropped almost 3% or more than 120 points. Germany’s DAX, France’s CAC and Britain’s FTSE were all down around 3 per cent and also heading for their biggest falls of the year so far.

Major U.S. indexes are down 10 percent or more since the beginning of the year.

The Company declined -77.78% in the last trading session to close at $0.52.