The global economic climate is perhaps not the best for investors anywhere in the world and over the past few months, the slowdown in China has created a very troublesome investors in almost all the key bourses in the world. Many indices have tumbled to record levels at different points this year and the latest to get a shock was the Hong Kong stock exchange, whose index known as the Hang Seng index tumbled 2.5% in today's trade and in the process recorded its lowest point in the last 4 months. There is widespread uncertainty in the capital markets at this point in time due to the upcoming meeting of 4 major central banks in the world over the coming days and in addition to that, the possibility of Britain's exit from the European Union later on this month has also triggered heavy selling in the Hong Kong stock market.
A report on Reuters on the dramatic fall in the Hong Song index charted out the reasons behind the sell off, "The Hang Seng index fell 2.5 percent, to 20,512.99, while the China Enterprises Index lost 2.4 percent, to 8,619.92 points. Global market volatility has surged ahead of this week's central bank meetings as well as Britain's June 23 referendum on whether to remain in the European Union. The U.S. Federal Reserve, Bank of England, Swiss National Bank and the Bank of Japan are all due to hold policy meetings this week.Sentiment was not helped by lacklustre Chinese data. China's fixed-asset investment growth was slower than expected, while industrial output and retail sales data were not encouraging either."
Analysis from ANZ stated in one of its reports, "Given today's data, there is higher risk for China to miss the growth target of 6.5 percent y/y in Q2," The recent downturn will certainly not help whatever little recovery that the markets had experienced over the past weeks but one can't help but thing that the next few days could prove to be crucial for the markets as four of the most important central banks meet in order to chart the economic futures of their countries.
