Study Shows Asian Markets Hit Bad In Current Global Financial Crisis

Asian Development Bank had already started taking survey estimating the losses in financial assets globally!

The Business Times carried the following article. Global financial asset losses hit US$50tril:Study

• MANILA: The global financial crisis slashed the value of financial assets worldwide by US$50 trillion (US$1 = RM3.72) last year, a study commissioned by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said yesterday.
  
  Financial asset losses in developing Asia, which suffered more than other emerging markets, totalled US$9.6 trillion, or just over one year's worth of developing Asia's gross domestic product, the study said.
  
  "The previous sense of strength and invulnerability is now gone," said the ADB-sponsored study, noting that "there were concerns about the effect of a shallow recession in the United States, but the general perception was that Asia, the largest regional emerging market group, was doing well". "The loss of financial wealth is enormous," said the study entitled, "Global Financial Turmoil and Emerging Market Economies: Major Contagion and a shocking loss of wealth."
  
  "As noted earlier, the loss of wealth at a world-wide level may amount to an astounding US$50 trillion, or one year's worth of GDP. Such losses will have an enormous impact on domestic expenditure." Haruhiko Kuroda, ADB president, said Asia was hit harder than other parts of the developing world because its markets have expanded more rapidly.
  
  The ratio of financial assets to GDP rose to 370 per cent of GDP in developing Asia in 2007 from 250 per cent in 2003, the study said.
  
  In comparison, Latin America's ratio only rose by modest 30 per cent with the result that estimated losses on financial assets were a much lower US$2.1 trillion, or 57 per cent of GDP.
  
  Based on the study, the estimates measure the losses in equity and bond markets, including those based on mortgages and other assets, and the depreciations of currencies against the US dollar.
  
  The estimates did not include financial derivatives such as credit default swaps that further multiplied the size of the financial markets. The data provides clear proof of the close connections between the markets and economies around the world, leaving few, if any, countries immune to financial or economic fallouts elsewhere, the study said.
  
  "This is by far the most serious crisis to hit the world economy since the Great Depression," Kuroda said at the opening of the two-day forum on the impact of global economic and financial crisis at the ADB headquarters in Manila. - Reuters

Comments:

The point made that the general perception that Asia was doing well should not be discounted.

Remember the decoupling theory? I can still recall the following. :p2

• While most people are gripped by fear over US taking a one-way street to Recessionville, i Capital.biz managing director Tan Teng Boo maintains an extremely bullish view on the US economy while he holds on to the view that the world economy has decoupled from the US economy.

And till this very day, despite being aware of the current global financial crisis, I see many folks not fully aware how bad Asia could get hit. Even in Malaysia, many have yet to accept the possibility that we are already in a recession. Why? Perhaps they could not accept how the recent commodity bull run could turn into a bust so fast and so devastating!