Stocks take battering as Italian crisis roils financial markets

TOKYO (May 30): Asian stocks extended a global sell-off on Wednesday as Italy’s political crisis rippled across financial markets, toppling the euro to a 10-month low, pushing up Italian borrowing costs and sending investors rushing to safe-haven assets such as US Treasuries.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan tumbled 1.5%, while Japan’s Nikkei average sold off as much 1.9% to hit a six-week low. Chinese shares also headed south, with the Shanghai Composite index down 1.8%, South Korea’s KOSPI and Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 slipped 2.0% and 0.6%, respectively.

The sharp downturn followed from an equally harsh session on Wall Street on Tuesday, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 1.6%, the S&P 500 lost 1.2% and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.5%. The financial sector took a hard hit.

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