GLOBAL MARKETS-Greek Woes Hit Asian Shares, Euro Down

Reuters ^ | 5-4-2010 | Vikram S Subhedar

[blam]

GLOBAL MARKETS-Greek Woes Hit Asian Shares, Euro Down

Vikram S Subhedar
Tue May 4, 2010 10:28pm EDT

* Euro slides, hits one-year low against dollar

* Asian stocks drop; materials, resources lead losses

* Oil slips below $82 on rising inventories, strong dollar (Repeats to more subscribers)

HONG KONG, May 5 (Reuters) - A tumble in global stocks spread to Asia on Wednesday on heightening fears that Greece's debt woes could spread to other countries.

"One gets the feeling that the euro zone is turning out to be a basket case and of course rumours about Spain and Portugal's sovereign debt isn't helping. I suspect the market wants to take the euro to as low as $1.25 in the short term," said Joanthan Cavenagh, currency strategist at Westpac, Sydney.

* The euro EUR= fell to a one-year low of $1.2936 in Asian trade, having fallen past key support around $1.3000 on Tuesday when it lost over 1.5 percent.

* The MSCI index of Asia ex-Japan stocks .MIAPJ0000PUS was down over 1.5 percent. Markets in Japan, Korea and Thailand are closed.

* Australian stocks .AXJ0 tumbled 1.8 percent, the steepest fall in three months, with the resources sector leading losses. Hong Kong's Hang Seng .HSI opened about 2 percent lower.

* The U.S. dollar was a major beneficiary of risk aversion with its index =USD .DXY up 0.28 percent, on top of a 1.4 percent rise on Tuesday. That was the biggest daily gain so far this year and took the index to the highest since May 2009.

* Euro/yen EURJPY=R hovered around recent lows just below 123 yen, having lost over 1.6 percent in the previous session. The Aussie/yen AUDJPY=R was down at 86.21 yen..

[snip]

Click here to see the results of the Asian markets.

[BOBTHENAILER]

scary, scary parallels.

[GOPJ]

I really thought this was going to happen last year.

Me too.

[mylife]

They had to steal the bailout money first.

[GOPJ]

LOL

[Ken H]

I just listened to a report on Bloomberg radio about Greece. I think it was from a foreign news source.

Oh boy! They are painting a big fat target on Greek 'tax evaders' and 'rich' Greeks. You could hear the sneer in the narrator's voice as she said 'tax evaders'.

They reported that of the 17,000+ homes with swimming pools, only 2% pay the required tax. Then they said that if you're a Greek traveling to Switzerland, get ready for some unwelcome attention.

Scapegoating and demagoguery in real time.

[blam]

"Then they said that if you're a Greek traveling to Switzerland, get ready for some unwelcome attention."

The rich moved their money out of the country quite a while ago.