Huge losses everywhere Stock markets plummet worldwide - SMI deep red, Wall Street crashes

For the global financial markets, the start to the new week threatens to be another deep red. In Asia, the Nikkei plummeted by more than 8 percent.

In Asia, last week's sell-off is already continuing: the Japanese Nikkei is currently down more than 13%. There were also losses in Switzerland at the start of the week.

The leading SMI index fell by 2.2 percent shortly after the start of trading on Monday. Last Friday, it had plummeted by 3.6 percent.

On Wall Street, too, things kick off shortly after 3.30 p.m. Swiss time with figures in the deep red. The Dow Jones Index loses over 5.3 percent shortly after the start of trading.

Meanwhile, the flight to safe havens such as the Swiss franc continues on the currency markets. In the morning, the euro/Swiss franc pair fell to 0.9281 at times. The last time the currency pair traded this low was at the beginning of the year.

Significant losses already last week

The cryptocurrency Bitcoin is also losing ground due to increasing risk aversion on the financial markets. The price of the oldest and best-known cryptocurrency plummeted to 53,000 dollars in early trading on Monday, its lowest level since February. That is around 8,500 dollars or almost 14 percent less than late Friday evening.

Bitcoin had already fallen sharply last week. With the drop on Monday, the Bitcoin price also fell back to the level seen at the end of February, after climbing to a record high of almost 74,000 dollars in mid-March.

And with its jump last Friday, the VSMI volatility index has now also reached heights last seen last October.

The global financial markets already closed last week with significant losses. For example, the SMI recorded losses of 3.6% on Friday - the biggest daily drop since January 2022.

In Japan, the Nikkei had already slumped by 6% on Friday and the stock markets in the USA also closed weaker again - the technology index Nasdaq 100 even fell to its lowest level since mid-May.

Rapidly deteriorating economic data for the USA

This was triggered by the rapidly deteriorating US economic data. From the second half of the week onwards, this data has conjured up fears of recession in the USA, leading to a broad-based sell-off on the stock markets.

The fact that US Fed Chairman Jerome Powell signaled a turnaround in interest rates for September last Wednesday is of little help. Cautionary voices are wondering whether the US Federal Reserve might not have waited too long to cut interest rates.