Messing Around the World in 24 Hours

Three interesting follow ups to Tuesday's messy trading:

First off, computer errors didn't cause the sell off, they only delayed the reporting of the trades.

If anything, these delays made the sell off look more orderly than it really was. Contrary to what you may have read elsewhere, the glitch only made the sell off look more mild (orderly and less severe) until it turned more wild as the delays spooled out and unwound. I have seen several early news reports and comments that got this exactly backwards.

Anyone who will use this as a false excuse for Tuesday is a weasel.

The graphic below does a very good job explaining the situation:

Chart courtesy of WSJ

Second, and this is more along the lines of our earlier "Don't Blame China" discussion, go check out this interactive map at the WSJ (it's free). Scroll over any country, and you get their Bourse performance for Feb 27th.

Map courtesy of WSJ

If China was the root cause, why was most of the Pacific Rim down so mildly?

Malaysia and Singapore got tagged pretty good, but the rest of Asia was off between 0.5% and 1.5%. Korea and Japan, arguably the most important countries economically in the region with China, were down mildly.

If China was to blame, why then such a mild response in her own backyard? Here are the closing numbers for 2/27, with China down 8.8%:

Australia -0.74%
Hong Kong -1.76%
India -1.25%
Indonesia -1.12%
Japan -0.52%
Malaysia -3.09%
Pakistan -0.14%
Philippines -1.44%
Singapore -2.29%
S.Korea -1.05%
Sri Lanka -0.53%
Taiwan 0.02%
Thailand -0.69%

Note that the European countries were down much worse than Asia - particularly after the U.S. economic data was released. Most European Bourses opened down 1% to 2%, and then saw their selling accelerate after 8:30 U.S. time.

Next, note that Japan opened down 700 points on 2.28.07. Did it take them 24 hours to figure out what happened in China, or might it have been intervening events?

Map courtesy of Yahoo!

Last, check out the Asian markets as of 2/28/07. As of late last night, they were pretty ugly.

Table courtesy of WSJ

Sources:
After a Rough Morning, A Data Backup Jolts The Blue-Chip Average
SCOTT PATTERSON, AARON LUCCHETTI and RANDALL SMITH
WSJ, February 28, 2007
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB117262349120221401-
QAR8ZjefbQKCDP1fmvMZxf_CW7E_20080227.html?mod=blogs

SUDDEN RETREAT
Markets' Slide Spotlights Risks
Chinese Shares Tumble, And Investors Reassess
U.S. Economic Outlook Fleeing to Safe Treasurys
E.S. BROWNING and CRAIG KARMIN in New York, and JAMES T. AREDDY in Shanghai
WSJ, February 28, 2007
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117262424948121390.html

Stocks Slide World-Wide
Global Map
WSJ, February 27, 2007
http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-marketdrop0207.html

NIKKEI 225
Yahoo! Finance, Feb 27, 2007 10:58pm EST
http://finance.yahoo.com/charts#chart1:symbol=^n225;range=1d;
indicator=volume;charttype=line;crosshair=on;logscale=on;source=undefined