More than $2.3tn was wiped off global stocks this week as China’s slowing economy and currency depreciations spooked investors around the world, leading to the worst start to a year for markets in at least two decades.
A robust US jobs report, which added a stronger-than-expected 292,000 extra jobs in December, allayed some concerns over US economic growth on Friday but failed to rescue the grim week for financial markets.
The catalyst for this week’s market turmoil has been China’s plunging stock market and weakening currency. Beijing’s powerful influence over financial markets this week underlines for investors how the country’s policy decisions reverberate across the global stage.