China, Chile and Mexico Lead World Markets

123jump.com Staff
30 Mar, 2007
New York City

World markets registered healthy gains in the first forty five days of the quarter and then encountered significant headwinds. Most country indexes lost all the gains of the quarter during the last thirty days. Commodities and mining driven countries dominated world markets. Shanghai led the world markets with nearly 43% plus gains followed by Chile, Mexico, Australia and Singapore. Sweden and Norway led European bourses. Venezuela and India ranked at the bottom with losses.

Global markets barely budged at the end of the first quarter after steadily rising in the first forty five days of the quarter. World markets lost their early advances in the quarter led by Shanghai sell-off at the end of February and weakness in the housing market in the U.S.

Shanghai indexes led the global markets with gains between 40% and 45% followed by advances in Chile, South Africa, Mexico, Australia and Singapore

In Asia, Japan closed nearly unchanged after rising as much as 6% in mid-February. India lost nearly 6% in the quarter after steadily rising above 40% for the last three years. Smaller markets in Asia registered double digit gains. Malaysia gained 15% followed by Pakistan with a rise of 12% and Philippines with an advance of 7.4%. India ranked as the second worst performer of all the 35 world stock exchange indexes tracked by 123jump.com.

In Latin America metals and mining driven companies led the regional indexes. Chile led the region with a gain of 16% followed by 10.3% rise in Mexico. Brazil rose less than 5% and Argentina gained a fraction at the end of the quarter. High flying Venezuela surged in January but generated substantial losses in the last two months of trading and closed down 6.3%, with the largest loss among 35 markets tracked by 123jump.com.

U.S. markets failed to impress investors with meager gains. Nasdaq led the three popular indexes with a gain of 0.3% followed by rise of 0.2% in S&P 500 and a loss of 0.9% in Dow Jones Industrial Average.

For the quarter, European markets delivered worst performance in the last four years. Most major markets barely closed in the positive. Sweden and Norway lead the rise in the region with gains of 5.8% and 3.75% respectively. Germany advanced 4.85% and Austria edged up 4.1%. Belgium and Russia gained 1.9% and 2.1% respectively, Switzerland added 2.2% and Italy edged up 0.8%. U.K. barely budged with a gain of less than 1.4%.