Equities crushed by great fall of China

Dubai - 'Black Monday' also hits commodities, forex.

It was "Black Monday" for equities across the world, as well as for oil and foreign exchange markets.
Stock market jitters spread throughout Asia and the rest of the world after Chinese stocks recorded their biggest slump in eight years.
The Shanghai Composite Index has lost nearly 40 per cent since June, after rising more than 140 per cent last year.
Tokyo's Nikkei-225 index witnessed its biggest drop in more than two years, falling 4.6 per cent to a six-month low, while the MSCI index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan sank 5.1 per cent to a three-year low.
Commodities, oil prices and the currencies of many developing countries also plunged on concerns that a sharp decline in China might hurt economic growth across the globe.
Gulf stocks continued its bearish journey, led by Saudi Arabia's Tadawul, which lost 5.88 per cent, followed by Oman, down 2.96 per cent; Qatar, slipping 2.14 per cent; Kuwait, sliding 1.59 per cent; Bahrain, dipping 0.80 per cent.
The Dubai Financial Market General Index recovered early losses as the benchmark closed 1.44 per cent after touching a 6.1 per cent decline.
Abu Dhabi recorded the lowest drop of 0.51 among Gulf countries.
Gulf Finance House, Amlak, Deyaar Development and Arabtec were top trading scrips at the Dubai bourse. Global equities have lost more than $5 trillion in value since China's shock currency devaluation on August 11, with US shares succumbing to the selloff at the end of last week. The slide in Brent to the lowest in more than six years is piling pressure on Gulf states.
"Oil just can't stop sliding and local investors are very worried about where the bottom is and how long regional economies can take the battering," Sebastien Henin, the head of asset management at The National Investor in Abu Dhabi, told Bloomberg.
"With China's currency devaluation and concerns of a global economic slowdown, equities as an asset class are just too risky at the moment and no wonder regional indexes are entering bear territory," Henin added.
At mid-afternoon, Frankfurt's blue-chip DAX 30 index was down 6.79 per cent at 9,537.91 points, while the CAC 40 in Paris trading dropped 6.57 per cent to 4,329.12 after earlier sinking more than eight per cent.
London's benchmark FTSE 100 index of leading companies lost 5.02 per cent to stand at 5,877.01 compared with Friday's close.
About 15 minutes into trade on Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 3.30 per cent - a more than 1,000 point drop from the opening level - before recovering somewhat.
The broad-based S&P 500 sank 3.18 per cent, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index fell 3.84 per cent to 4,525.38.
Oil prices fell more than six per cent to fresh 6-1/2-year lows on Monday as markets worried about a China-led global economic slowdown that would drastically hit oil consumption at a time of plentiful supply. - abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com