Subprime concerns continue: Asia Pac

Excerpts from Power Breakfast on CNBC-TV18 Watch the full show » RELATED NEWS Expect volatility to continue in short-term: Lotus AMC Expect volatility in next couple of days Nifty BSE | NSE 25/05/12 Are Mutual Funds betting on Nifty?

Asian markets were trading weak. Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled 0.65% or 176.35 points at 27,033.86.

Japan's Nikkei plunged 0.29% or 43.40 points at 15,179.45. Taiwan's Taiwan Weighted was down 0.22% or 18.81 points at 8,356.95. Singapore's Straits Times declined 0.12% or 4.02 points at 3,368.62. South Korea's Seoul Composite dropped 0.16% or 3.05 points at 1,856.74. 

James Chirnside, CIO, Asia Pacific Asset Management when asked what was the concern for the Asian markets to remain quite said, "I suspect there are continuing concerns surrounding subprime write-downs in the United States. Thus far we have seen in total and in aggregate in Europe and in the US about a USD 100 billion of write-downs in subprime bad loans."

 

The expectation is there could be as much as USD 300 billion over time. So that really does leave us right in the earlier part of that thing yet to play out and I think that is a backdrop concern for equity markets globally at present, said Chirnside.

 

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