Stocks in a tailspin, dollar soars as hard landing fears grow

A broker reacts while trading at his computer terminal at a stock brokerage firm in Mumbai, India, February 1, 2020. REUTERS/Francis Mascarenhas

LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) – Shares sank to a 1-1/2 year low on Thursday and the dollar hit its highest in two decades, as fears grew that fast-rising inflation will drive a sharp rise in interest rates that brings the global economy to a standstill.

Those nerves and the still-escalating war in Ukraine took Europe’s main markets down more than 2% in early trade and left MSCI’s top index of world shares (.MIWD00000PUS) at its lowest since late 2020 and down nearly 20% for the year.

The global growth-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars fell about 0.8% to almost two-year lows. The Chinese yuan slid to a 19-month trough while the dollar powered to its highest level since late 2002 .

Nearly all the main volatility gauges were signalling danger. Bitcoin was caught in the fire-sale of risky crypto assets as it fell another 8% to $26,570, having been near $40,000 just a week ago and almost $70,000 just last November.

“We have had big moves,” UBS’s UK Chief Investment Officer Caroline Simmons, said referring as well to bond markets and economic expectations. “And when the market falls it does tend to fall quite fast.”

Data on Wednesday had showed U.S. inflation running persistently hot. Headline consumer prices rose 8.3% in April year-on-year, fractionally slower than the 8.5% pace of March, but still above economists’ forecasts for 8.1%. read more

U.S. markets had whipsawed after the news, closing sharply lower, and futures prices were pointing to another round of 0.2%-0.7% falls for the S&P 500, Nasdaq and Dow Jones Industrial later.

“We’re now very much embedded with at least two further (U.S.) hikes of 50 basis points on the agenda,” said Damian Rooney, director of institutional sales at Argonaut in Perth.

“I think we probably were delusional six months ago with the rise of U.S. equities on hopes and prayers and the madness of the meme stocks,” he added.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan (.MIAPJ0000PUS) fell 2.3% to a 22-month low overnight. Japan’s Nikkei (.N225) fell 1.8%.

Treasuries were bid in both Europe and Asia, especially at the long end, flattening the yield curve as investors braced for near-term hikes to hurt long-run growth – an outcome that would most likely slow or even reverse rate hikes.

The benchmark 10-year Treasury yield had dropped in the U.S. and fell a further 7 bps to 2.8569% on Thursday. The gap between the highly rate-rise sensitive two-year yields and 10-year ones narrowed 4.2 bps .

In Europe, Germany’s 10-year yield, the benchmark for the bloc, fell as much as 12 bps to 0.875%, its lowest in nearly two weeks.

“I think a lot of it is catch up from what happened yesterday, and also there’s still a lot of negative sentiment in the U.S. Treasury curve,” said Lyn Graham-Taylor, senior rates strategist at Rabobank.

SELL IN MAY

The rates outlook is driving up the U.S. dollar and taking the heaviest toll on riskier assets that shot up through two years of stimulus and low-rate lending.

The Nasdaq (.IXIC) is down nearly 8% in May so far and more than 25% this year. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Tech index (.HSTECH) slid 1.5% on Thursday and is off more than 30% this year.

Cryptocurrency markets are also melting down, with the collapse of the so-called stablecoin TerraUSD highlighting the turmoil as well as the selling in bitcoin and next-biggest-crypto, ether . read more

A weakening growth picture outside the United States is battering investor confidence, too, as…