TOKYO - Concerns are rife about a global economic slowdown as evidenced by an overnight equities rout on major U.S. and European bourses, sending the U.S. dollar tumbling versus other currencies, including the Japanese yen.
Tokyo-based analysts indicating there will likely be more headwinds ahead.
Market here closed sharply lower Tuesday as a swathe of issues were dumped in the face of a rising yen against the greenback, with the Nikkei Stock Average plunging 5.40 percent to a three-week closing low, as market players offloaded riskier assets like stocks in favor of safe haves like the yen.
Analysts said that market consternation was growing based on a raft of economic data suggesting that global economic growth is slowing.
Despite what traders have descried as a temporary uptick in crude oil prices owing to the U.S. dollar's slump proportional to the affordability of oil, the glut will likely continue as surplus continues to outstrip demand and prices drop again when the dollar recovers.
"What we've seen in the last 24 hours or so is a global market react to concerns that, while a slowdown in emerging economies has been widely been factored in, recent macroeconomic data from the U. S. has, collectively, contributed to an overall 'sour indicator' that the world's largest economy may be heading toward a recession, " Hisao Katayama, a senior equity analyst at Nomura Securities Co.,  told Xinhua.(Xinhua)