Asian Markets Gloomy on U.S. Jobs Data

The U.S. jobs data, released on Friday, showed that the U.S. economy had added no jobs at all in August, a hugely disappointing figure that renewed worries that the economy may be heading for a recession.

Wall Street reacted with a decline of 2.2 percent on the Dow Jones industrial average and a 2.5 percent fall on the Standard Poor’s 500. The benchmark indexes in several leading European markets slumped more than 3 percent Friday.

The stock markets in Asia followed suit on Monday. In Japan, the Nikkei 225 index sagged 1.7 percent by the lunchtime break in Tokyo.

Exporters like Sony, Panasonic and Sharp, which derive a large part of their earnings from sales in the United States and Europe, fell more than 3 percent.

South Korea and Singapore tumbled 2.5 percent and 2.4 percent, respectively.

The S. P./ASX 200 in Australia and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong retreated 2.1 percent. In mainland China, the Shanghai composite index slipped 1.1 percent, and in Taiwan, the Taiex dropped 2.5 percent.

S. P. 500 futures were 0.5 percent lower by midmorning in Asia. The U.S. market is closed on Monday for the Labor Day holiday.

Gold, which tends to rise in times of uncertainty, was hovering at around $1,880 an ounce, having risen sharply in U.S. trading on Friday.

Adding to investor jitters were fresh worries about the euro zone’s ability to cohesively respond to its debt crisis, after talks between Greece and its foreign creditors were put on hold Friday and the head of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, warned Italy to stick to its austerity program.

The euro slipped to $1.417 by late morning in Asia, its lowest level against the U.S. dollar in about three weeks.

“Financial markets continue to be stressed about the lack of growth drivers in the global economy,” analysts at DBS said in a research report on Monday. They noted that at present the United States appeared to be the only major economy with an agenda to get fiscal and monetary policies together to support the weak U.S. jobs market.

“Against this background, members at the G-7 meeting on Sept. 9-10 will have a challenging task to restore confidence in the ability of the advanced economies to support growth and jobs, as well as to restore financial stability,” the DBS analysts wrote. “Hence, risk appetite is likely to be low in markets as long as the advanced economies are seen on the defensive on the growth front.”

Matthew Saltmarsh contributed reporting from London.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/business/asian-markets-gloomy-on-us-jobs-data.html?partner=rss&emc=rss