At Friday’s close the eight markets on my world watch list turned in their worst collective weekly average of the past two calendar years, an eye-opening -3.19%. The second worse was the -2.59% average on June 18, 2013. All eight posted losses for the week, with the Mumbai SENSEX down the least at -0.50%. The S&P 500 was a distant second at -1.97%. Japan’s Nikkei was the biggest loser at -6.20%.
The Shanghai Composite remains the only index on the watch list in bear territory — the traditional designation for a 20% decline from an interim high. See the table inset (lower right) in the chart below. The index is down 42.26% from its interim high of August 2009. At the other end, the BSE SENSEX closed the week only 0.57% off its record high.
Here is a look at 2014 so far.
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Here is a table highlighting the year-to-date index performance, sorted from high to low, along with the 2014 interim highs for the eight indexes. At this point, seven of the eight indexes are in the red, with last year’s big winner, the Nikkei, down over 12 percent.
A Closer Look at the Last Four Weeks
The tables below provide a concise overview of performance comparisons over the past four weeks for these eight major indexes. I’ve also included the average for each week so that we can evaluate the performance of a specific index relative to the overall mean and better understand weekly volatility. The colors for each index name help us visualize the comparative performance over time.
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The chart below illustrates the comparative performance of World Markets since March 9, 2009. The start date is arbitrary: The S&P 500, CAC 40 and BSE SENSEX hit their lows on March 9th, the Nikkei 225 on March 10th, the DAX on March 6th, the FTSE on March 3rd, the Shanghai Composite on November 4, 2008, and the Hang Seng even earlier on October 27, 2008. However, by aligning on the same day and measuring the percent change, we get a better sense of the relative performance than if we align the lows.
