Fears of a recession in the US economy are troubling global financial markets

The American jobs report, published last Friday, caused a big shock to the American and global financial markets, at the beginning of their trading yesterday (Monday), as the Japanese index “Nikkei” fell in the worst session in decades, and the disease affected all the world’s stock exchanges without exception, amid fears of… economic recession.

Japanese stocks fell yesterday, suffering the biggest daily loss since the “Black Monday” selling wave of 1987, due to a slump in global stock markets, economic fears, and concern about any negative impact on investments it was financed in yen at a time when it was losing much of its value.

The Nikkei index lost 12.4%, and the yen rose to its highest levels in seven months against the dollar.

At the end of yesterday, the index had lost 113 trillion yen ($792.32 billion) from that peak market value.

The sharp decline in Japanese stock markets wiped $15 billion from the value of SoftBank Group, following the group’s biggest one-day decline since it went public in 1998, according to Bloomberg.

The total value of cryptocurrencies fell by about $270 billion, after a 13% decline in Bitcoin to $51,560, the biggest daily decline since November 2022. Ethereum currency “Ether” fell 21% to its lowest level since mid-January at $2,277.

European stocks also fell yesterday to their lowest levels in about six months amid a global sell-off, driven by fears of slowing economic growth in the United States.

The European STOXX 600 index fell 3.1% to 482.42 points, recording its lowest levels since February 13.

The index saw its worst weekly performance in nearly 10 months last Friday, falling below 500 points for the first time since April 15.

Investors have refrained from risky assets, driven by fears that the United States is heading for an economic recession. Britain’s FTSE 100 index fell by 2.94%, Germany’s DAX by 3.28%, and France’s CAC 40 by 2.61%.

Technology stocks fell as much as 5% before paring losses slightly to trade at 4.5%. Banks also lost 4.4%, while oil and gas, retail, auto and mining stocks fell more than 4%.

In a related context, gold prices rose yesterday, supported by fears that the United States is heading for recession, and growing bets that the The Federal Reserve (US central bank) adopted a sharp monetary easing policy.

The safe haven in spot transactions increased 0.14% to $2,446.83 an ounce, while US gold futures rose 0.8% to $2,488.50.

In turn, the consultant of the global financial markets, Muhammad Mahdi Abdelnabi, explained, “The movements of rich people such as (Warren Buffett) and others and the tendency to keep money liquid resulted from the anticipation of the crisis of the global economic recession, and from his ‘ the return of that money to seize opportunities in the world markets as a result of the great decline in prices.” . He expected the global financial markets to decline further, especially when economic data emerged that confirmed a recession, which had a negative impact on the stock markets.