American stocks headed for yet another sharply lower open Monday as stock markets tumbled further around the world on worries about the health of the global economy.
The Nikkei fell 6.4 percent to its lowest level since October 1982, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index tumbled 12.7 percent, its lowest finish in more than four years and its biggest single-session drop since 1991.
The global sell-off comes a day ahead of the start of a two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve and is prompting speculation that the world's major central banks could announce coordinated rate cuts. The Fed had already been expected to lower its fed funds rate by a half-point to 1 percent on Wednesday.
The sell-off came even as the seven leading industrial nations on Sunday issued a statement warning about the "recent excessive volatility" in the value of the yen. The G7 said it would "cooperate as appropriate," stirring speculation of an orchestrated intervention to help stabilize currency markets.
Investors around the world seemed largely unimpressed by government efforts to help lift market sentiment.
Down here, the Indian stock opened weak and had a bout of panic before ending the day marginally low.
At one stage the Nifty moved to below 2300 levels. It is a tempting market for investors given the panic mood but I would suggest caution as something had changed fundamentally world wide.
We could see further drops before this becomes a buyers market.
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