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Asian stock markets tumbled Thursday after Wall Street sank as a plunge in Credit Suisse shares reignited worries about a possible bank crisis following the failure of two U.S. lenders.
Shanghai, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Sydney slid as Asian bank stocks fell, reversing Wednesday’s gains. Oil prices rose.
Wall Street’s benchmark S &P 500 lost 0.7% on Wednesday after being down as much as 2.1% at one point following a 30% fall in Credit Suisse’s share price. That fueled jitters about global banks that are under strain from interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and other central banks to cool inflation.
The Credit Suisse decline “shakes already fragile investor sentiment,” said Venkateswaran Lavanya of Mizuho Bank in a report.
The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo retreated 0.9% to 26,998.07. Mizuho Bank was down 3.9%, while Japan’s No. 5 bank, Resona Holdings, lost 4.8%.
The Hang Seng in Hong Kong shed 1.4% to 19,271.65. Standard Chartered Plc lost 2.5% and HSBC was 2.5% lower.
The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.5% to 3,245.65 after government data Wednesday showed the Chinese economy is recovering more slowly than expected following the lifting of anti-virus controls.
China’s banks don’t face the same pressures as foreign lenders because Beijing has held its benchmark lending rate steady since mid-2022 and keeps the country sealed off from global capital flows. State-owned Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, Ltd. and Bank of China, Ltd. were up 0.1%.
The Kospi in Seoul was 0.
