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Growth Concerns And Delay In Trade Talks Aggravate Market Sentiment

With the trade deal talks going on without any conclusion between the U.S. and China, the Asian markets were quite worried and shares slumped on Friday.
Chinese data is showing a slowdown in the economy which has worried Asian countries as the sales cycle affects all countries across the globe.
Shanghai Composite Index has closed with a fall by 4.40 percent, the worst single day performance for the year. Similarly, the Hang Seng has also fallen by 1.9 percent. Australia’s ASX 200 lost 0.9 percent while the Kospi of South Korea dropped by 1.3 percent.
All major indices in Asia have dropped by a large margin. Nikkei of Japan has lost 2 percent.
Though announcements are made on Thursday that the trade deal is still going on, a proper agreement has still not been drawn. The date of removal of tariffs has not been mentioned and other important details have not been clarified.
On Wednesday, President Trump had said that talks were moving nicely. The March 1 deadline has been extended. However, the U.S. President has said that the deal would not be agreed upon if it was not satisfactory.
Exports in China for the month of February have fallen by 20.7 percent which is much lesser than data of last year. Expectations from economists were a drop by 6 percent only while the actual data reported has been very weak.
However, Japan has provided data on growth in the economy by 1.9 percent for the fourth quarter of 2018, which is a better performance than last year.
Europe’s announcement on Thursday about providing easier loans for banks and the delay in a hike in interest rates do not reflect good growth in the economy.
Brent crude was trading at $65.84 per barrel, while U.S. crude was trading at $56.30 per barrel on Thursday.
The gloom across the global economy has investors worried.