Japan’s Nikkei 225 tumbles nearly 9% on Monday as Hong Kong’s Hang Seng down 8% and South Korea trading temporarily halted amid Trump tariff concerns

Full headline: FTSE 100 plunges 6% to one-year low amid market turmoil, as Goldman Sachs raises chances of US recession to 45% – business live

8h ago02.37 BST

Hong Kong and Chinese stocks dive

Hong Kong stocks have plummeted more than 9% at open, while Singapore stocks dropped over 7%, according to reports.

Hong Kong and Chinese stocks dived on Monday as markets around the world crumbled in the face of the widening global trade war and fears it will unleash a deep recession, Reuters says.

Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was down 8% in early trade. Shares in online giants Alibaba and Tencent were down more than 8%.

China’s CSI300 blue-chip index fell 4.5%.

China, which is now facing US tariffs of more than 50%, responded in kind on Friday by slapping extra levies on US imports.

8h ago02.30 BST

Taiwan stocks plummeted almost 10% on Monday in their first trading since Donald Trump announced his new tariffs regime last week, with the head of the island’s stock exchange saying it would roll out more stabilisation policies if needed.

After opening on Monday following a two-day market holiday on Thursday and Friday, Taiwan’s benchmark index dropped to its lowest level in more than a year, Reuters reports.

Taiwan’s top financial regulator on Sunday announced it would impose temporary curbs lasting all this week on short-selling of shares to help deal with potential market turmoil from the tariffs.

Shares in chipmaker TSMC and electronics maker Foxconn both fell near 10%, triggering the 10% circuit breaker in the Taiwan market.

Speaking to reporters shortly after the market opened, Taiwan stock exchange chairman Sherman Lin said it would coordinate with the financial regulator to take further stabilisation steps if needed.

The stock exchange would maintain flexibility in stabilisation measures this week to handle volatility stemming from new U.S. import tariffs, Lin added.

He said it would be hard for Taiwan to escape the market impact of the tariffs, but called on investors to have confidence in Taiwanese companies and the government.

8h ago02.12 BST

US Treasury yields fell on Monday and the two-year yield sank to a multi-year low as worries of a possible recession in the world’s largest economy grew and investors wagered that could see US rates cut as early as May.

The two-year US Treasury yield, which typically reflects near-term rate expectations, tumbled more than 20 basis points to its lowest level since September 2022 at 3.4350%, as investors ramped up bets of more aggressive Federal Reserve easing this year, Reuters reports.

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The US Federal Reserve building in Washington DC. Photograph: Daniel Slim/AFP/Getty Images

The benchmark 10-year yield last stood at 3.9158%, languishing near Friday’s six-month low of 3.8600%.

Futures now point to nearly 120 basis points’ worth of Fed cuts by December and markets swung to imply a roughly 60% chance the US central bank could ease rates in May, as policymakers seek to shore up growth in the world’s largest economy on the back of President Donald Trump’s latest tariff salvo.

JPMorgan ratcheted up its odds for a U.S. and global recession to 60%, as mentioned, and brokerages elsewhere similarly raised their probability of a US recession as tariff distress threatens to sap business confidence and slow global growth.

9h ago01.57 BST

Nikkei plunge nears 9% as Japanese bank stocks plummet

Japan’s Nikkei share average tumbled nearly 9% early on Monday, while an index of Japanese bank stocks plunged as much as 17%, as concerns over a tariff-induced global recession continue to rip through markets.

The Nikkei dropped as much as 8.8% to hit 30,792.74 for the first time since October 2023. The index was trading down 7.3% at 31,318.79, as of 0034 GMT, Reuters reports.

All 225 component stocks of the index were trading in the red.

The broader Topix sank 8% to 2,284.69.

A topix index of banking shares slumped as much as 17.3%, and was last down 13.2%.

The bank index has borne the brunt of the sell-off in Japanese equities, plunging as much as 30% over the past three sessions.

9h ago01.45 BST

Nikkei plummets nearly 8%

The Nikkei 225 has now dived nearly 8% after the Wall Street meltdown over Donald Trump’s tariffs.

Japan’s benchmark stock index sank 7.8% to lows last seen in late 2023. South Korea lost 4.6%.

As reported earlier, Trump said of the falling markets that “medicine” could be necessary at times and he was not intentionally engineering a market selloff.

“I don’t want anything to go down, but sometimes you have to take medicine to fix something,” the US president told reporters aboard Air Force One.

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Donald Trump talks to media aboard Air Force One on Sunday. Photograph: Kent Nishimura/Reuters

The market carnage came as White House officials showed no sign of backing away from their sweeping tariff plans, Reuters reports, and China declared the markets had spoken on their retaliation through levies on US goods.

Trump said he would not do a deal with China until the US trade deficit was sorted out.