"World equity markets were rattled by concern over liquidity in August, as the anxiety over the U.S. housing market proved that all markets are connected," says Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at Standard & Poor's. "In addition, volatility returned in August with the S&P 500 posting changes of at least 1% for 12 of its 23 trading days - a rate not seen since 2002."
In August, 23 of the 27 developed equity markets posted negative returns. Finland (+4.46%), Luxembourg (+2.44%), Slovenia (+9.41%) and the United States (+1.56%) posted the only gains for the month. The three-month returns ending August were equally as poor, with 20 of the 27 countries reporting negative returns, with an average weighted loss of 3.04%. Twelve-month returns, on the other hand, were positive with all countries except for Japan (0.84%) posting double-digit gains.
Emerging equity markets were also hit hard in August, with 22 of the 25 countries reporting losses for the month. Columbia (11.64%), Pakistan (10.46%) and Peru (10.44%) all reported double-digit losses. Three-month returns were positive with 15 countries posting gains (average +7.15%) and 10 countries posting losses (average -4.48%). The twelve-month returns were also positive for emerging markets, with a reported average gain of 45.04%. Jordan was the sole decliner with a twelve-month loss of 11.97%.
Only five of the ten sectors posted gains in August, led by Telecommunications Services at 3.22% and Health Care at 1.48%. Communications Equipment led the sub-industries with a 4.59% gain, followed closely by Office Equipment (+4.57%) and Water Utilities (+4.54%).
