MUMBAI: Stocks, bonds, crude oil and commodities tumbled as investors feared a wave of sovereign debt crisis, similar to the 1997 Asian crisis, after Standard & Poor’s cut Greece’s rating to junk and lowered Portugal two notches. Safe haven gold rose.
Investors fear the downgrade of these two nations may be the beginning of a series of such moves as most governments are burdened with debt after they spent their way out of recession following the credit crisis. Even the US is under threat of losing its top rating.
“The biggest risk now is that the market speculates against every single indebted peripheral country, and that could lead to a sovereign debt crisis,” Axel Botte, a strategist at AXA Investment Managers in Paris, told Bloomberg News. “The contagion risk is real. It’s much easier to bail out a bank than to bail out a country.”
The Stoxx Europe 600 Index slid 3.1% in New York, Standard & Poor’s 500 Index lost 1.6%, crude oil sank 2.4%, while copper plunged 4.3%. ADRs of ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank crashed. Gold rose 0.7%, or $8, to $1161.57 an ounce.
Standard & Poor’s cut Greece three levels to BB+, or junk, and lowered Portugal two steps to A- as they stare at a default. Greek notes slid earlier as concern deepened that the nation will ask investors to accept delayed or reduced debt payments.
The European Union, which had pledged to support Greece, has been dragging its feet on the conditionalities to extend a bailout. Emerging markets could be the worst-hit in a sovereign crisis as global investors pull out funds in a flight to safety.
Global investors could sell developing market stocks and bonds, and buy US treasuries or German bonds which are considered the safest. The cost of borrowing for both companies and countries are set to rise.
“We could see another wave of forced deleveraging, which could obviously affect any high-yielding assets, including emerging-markets debt,” Luis Costa, an emerging markets strategist at Citigroup, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg.
The average spread for emerging-market bonds over the US treasury climbed 18 basis points to 261 basis points, the largest increase since February.
A basis point is 0.01 percentage point. The MSCI Emerging Markets Index dropped 1.7% and Brazil’s Bovespa index tumbled 2.4%. The Shanghai Composite Index sank 2.1% earlier to a six-month low, the most since February 5.
“We’re entering a phase of blind panic,” said Orlando Green, an interest-rate strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in London. “Given the inaction of the euro nations to back Greece and to get things done quickly, we’ve found now this inaction has been a big obstacle. That’s not satisfying for the markets, and not for S&P either; hence, the downgrade.”
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