Stocks slide on worries over China, Ukraine

LONDON: Europe’s main stock markets and Wall Street fell on Wednesday, with mining shares hit hard by renewed worries over China’s economic outlook, analysts said.
In New York, traders said that investors were also concerned about tensions over the situation in Ukraine.
London’s FTSE 100 sank 1.01 per cent to 6,617.87 points in afternoon deals in the British capital.
Frankfurt’s DAX 30 shed 1.49 per cent to 9,169.32 points and in Paris the CAC 40 slipped 1.56 per cent to 4,282.06 compared with Tuesday’s closing values.
In New York, the Dow Jones index opened with a fall of 0.29 per cent after shedding 0.41 per cent Tuesday, and the Nasdaq index was down 0.44 percent having fallen 0.63 percent the previous day.
“Deteriorating credit conditions in China are weighing on market sentiment,” said analyst David Madden at trading firm IG.
“Mining stocks have gone from bad to worse. There is speculation that the People’s Bank of China will loosen monetary policy.”
Europe’s mining sector took a major hit because China is a key consumer of metals.
In London, Glencore Xstrata shares slid 2.54 percent to 305.3 pence and Anglo American dropped 1.50 percent to 1,414 pence.
In Paris, global steelmaker Arcelor Mittal saw its share price fall 1.76 percent to 10.86 euros.
Meanwhile: Asian equities also sank Wednesday, taking their lead from another sell-off on Wall Street, while Tokyo took a hit as the yen climbed against the dollar.
Despite a small pick-up on Tuesday, regional markets followed Wall Street’s cues from Tuesday in the wake of the weekend’s worse-than-expected trade and inflation data from China and a downward revision to Japanese economic growth in 2013.
Tokyo tumbled 2.59 percent and Sydney fell 0.55 percent, while Seoul shed 1.60 percent.
Shanghai ended down 0.17 percent and Hong Kong retreated 1.65 percent in value.
 “The price of gold surged as investors took to the precious metal in search of safe haven assets whilst copper traded near its lowest level since 2010.”
On the London Bullion Market, the price of gold rallied to $1,355.77 an ounce from $1,346.25 on Tuesday.
The European single currency eased to $1.3862 from $1.3863 late in New York the day before. The dollar rose to 102.76 yen from 102.95 yen.
“A severe lack of news or data leaves investors still focusing on the apparent slowdown in China and the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine,” added Alpari analyst Craig Erlam.
Global shares tumbled after Beijing said on Saturday that it had an unexpected trade deficit of $22.98 billion in February.
The figure compared with a surplus of $14.8 billion in the same month last year, and a median forecast of an $11.9 billion surplus. Exports fell 18.1 percent and imports jumped 10.1 percent.
In London, Capital Economics commented that “the crisis in Ukraine has unsettled the markets, but the economic fallout should be contained to the two countries directly involved—Ukraine and Russia.”