Fear Factor Catching Up With Asia

First it was the U.S, Europe follows. Question is....is the crisis fear factor finally caught up with Asia too?

In the past, major Asian countries had been perceived to be relatively insulated from the U.S. financial crisis, as both China and India were believed to be holding the fort and able to maintain the relative strength and growth of the economies among Asian nations. However, that seemed to have changed for the worst, following Singapore being the first major Asian country to have gone into recession. As business and consumer confidence take a tumble and collapsing by the day, serious doubts are now placed on the survival of the regional financial institutions and corporations. In addition, the continuous rise of Japanese Yen as a result of the unwinding of Yen-carry trades further weigh on the sentiment as major currencies such as USD and Euro (against Yen) continue to weaken.

After about a week of "calmness" among Asian bourses, major Asian stockmarkets started to tumble again last Friday and the panic state seems to snowball going into this week, as indicated by today's (Monday) dizzy falls in Hong Kong (12.7%), Philippines (12.3%), Thailand (10.5%), and Japan Nikkei closes at its lowest in 26 years! Both Singapore and Malaysia markets have escaped the rout as both markets are closed for observing a public holiday (Deepavali).

It appears the fear factor has reached another level, or shall i call it "despair"?!