Your Evening Briefing: Stocks Are Taking Hits Everywhere

Spiraling losses on Wall Street are now snowballing into forced asset liquidation, according to Bank of America strategists. The NYSE Composite Index, which includes US stocks, depositary receipts and real estate investment trusts, has broken multiple technical support levels including its 200-week moving average, the 14,000 mark. Now, accumulated losses could force funds to sell more assets to raise cash, accelerating the selloff. Similarly grim milestones keep piling up for Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong. As September draws to an end, the Hang Seng China Enterprises Index has lost 14% to rank as the worst performer among major equity benchmarks globally in September. Hovering around the lowest since the global financial crisis, it is now trading at 0.6 times book value—the cheapest ever.

Then there’s the UK. Its rapid descent from stability to crisis, helped along by Prime Minister Liz Truss and her version of “Reaganomics,” is threatening to expose the fragility of global efforts to crush inflation, raising the specter of chaos spreading across financial markets. Events like Russia’s default in 1998 and, more recently, Greece’s debt crisis show how single countries can trigger wider financial turmoil.