Asian Markets Waiting For Next Wall Street Victim

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RENEE MONTAGNE, Host:

NPR's business news starts with investors hunkering down.

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MONTAGNE: Stock investors in Asia looked at Wednesday's big drop in the DOW and shouted "sell." After a volatile day, Asian stock markets fell an average of two percent as investors there worried about the next domino to fall on Wall Street. Tim Condon is with ING Financial Markets in Singapore.

TIM CONDON: Well, this is contagion, and it's not because there is really a great deal of thinking about the link between banks and economies, even in Asia and their counterparts in the U.S. It's more that people just don't want to hold any risky assets, and stocks are the first thing to sell.

MONTAGNE: Investors poured their money into safer investments like Treasury bills. Meanwhile, central banks in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. stood ready to pump money in the financial markets to prevent them from seizing up. That seems to be soothing stock investors in Europe where the major markets are all higher.

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