The Crisis Spreads to Emerging Markets

The financial crisis has spread to emerging markets:

Argentina’s bond markets were savaged on Tuesday as credit risk rose to all-time highs amid a broader surge in risk aversion towards emerging markets.

The move came as Russia’s stock market suffered its biggest one-day fall since the financial crisis of 1998, the South Korean won dropped by its most in a decade and the Ukrainian stock market fell 14 per cent.

Trading has been suspended on the Russian exchanges as shares nosedived:

Russian shares suffered their steepest one-day fall in more than a decade on Tuesday, losing up to 20 per cent, as a sharp slide in oil prices and difficult money market conditions triggered a rush to sell.

This is the biggest one-day dive since the August 1998 crash of the ruble. It is the combination of the credit crunch leading to margin calls and the fall in oil prices which (as we noted in a previous post) is the key fundamental driver of the Russian economy.