A Downward Momentum of Their Own in Global Equities
November 21, 2025
Share prices in Asian Pacific markets ended this difficult week with Friday losses of 3.8% in South Korea, 3.6% in Taiwan, 2.5% in China, 2.4% in Hong Kong and Japan, 1.6% in Australia and 1.0% in Singapore. European markets are under water, led by a drop so far today of 1.3% in Spain. U.S. futures show modest rebounds but have shown a tendency this week to show resilience before the opening bell and sometimes in the morning session but to crap out by day’s end.
Economic data reported this week don’t really explain the nervous tone that has enveloped risk-on financial assets. A better explanation lies the sheer accumulation of unsettling developments all year long — America’s rejection of its past embracement of democracy, tariff hikes that have curbed two-way trade flows, pointless wars Ukraine, Gaza and Sudan, and the breakdown in live-and-let-live norms that have been so vital to relations between countries as well as within them. The global climate keeps worsening as gas-emission targets get missed. European Central Bank President Lagarde spoke today of a “disappearing world” that will require European governments to find new ways to promote non-inflationary growth, while Federal Reserve Governor Miran again differentiated his view from his FOMC colleagues by urging an interest rate cut to a neutral setting now, rather than through a slow-drip process to some indeterminant time down the road. And then there is the wide gap between the great advances promised by AI developers and the fears of many warning about the perils of AI if its development proceeds at a helter skelter pace without any regulation. Economic growth in 2025 has actually been better than feared. However, investment in AI has accounted for a disproportionate share of such and popular discontent has festered further by the unchecked and widening gap between the haves and have-nots of society.
Investor anxiety has not been limited to equities. Just look at crypto, where the price of Bitcoin has plunged 35% in the 45 days since a record high of $126,273 on October 6 to $82,203 now. In fairness, the current price is still 5.2 times above the low of $15,760 hit exactly three years ago today on November 21, 2022, but that very volatility undermines the notion that electronic money would be a more stable money for conducting transactions and storing wealth.
Ten-year sovereign debt yields since Thursday’s close are down by four basis points in Japan and the U.K., three basis points in the United States, Germany and France and two basis points in Spain and Italy.
The Bank of Japan governor and finance minister of Japan have expressed further concern about recent yen weakness, and that has been the biggest currency market story. In contrast to a 0.1% dollar uptick against the euro and unchanged movement versus the Swiss franc, Canadian dollar and sterling, the dollar fell 0.6% against the yen on concerns about possible Japanese intervention sales of foreign currency.
The price of WTI oil is down 1% today, while that of gold is little change despite a 5% overnight drop in bitcoin’s value.
Today’s main data release involves preliminary purchasing manager results from November surveys.
- Japan‘s composite PMI (52.0) constitutes a 3-month high. While services (53.1) matched October’s reading, manufacturing rose 0.6 points to a 3-month high of 48.8.
- Australia‘s composite PMI also climbed to a 3-month high (52.6), as indices for services (52.7) and manufacturing (51.6) also touched 3-month highs.
- India‘s economy continued to grow robustly, but its composite PMI settled back almost a full point to a 6-month low of 59.9, with readings in manufacturing (57.4) at a 9-month low and services (59.5) down to a 2-month low.
- In Great Britain despite a 14-month high in manufacturing of 50.2, a 1.8-point decline in services to 50.5 pulled the composite measure down to a 2-month low of 50.5, or very little above the stagnation threshold of 50.0.
- Euroland‘s composite PMI, which had reached a 29-month high in October, edged 0.1 point lower this month to a 2-month low of 52.4. That ought to secure positive GDP in the year’s final quarter, but the bloc’s economy is increasingly dependent on services where the PMI reading of 53.1 was its highest in a year and a half. Manufacturing (49.9) is another story, where relentless inventory drawdowns continue amid sluggish demand.
- Germany‘s composite PMI slid to a 2-month low of 52.6, while the French measure of 49.9 was at a 15-month high.
Aside from the aforementioned concern about intervention, Japan made news today on the fiscal policy and data release fronts. The Japanese Diet approved a JPY 21.3 trillion fiscal stimulus, necessitating supplementary funding. Investors also learned that Japanese consumer price inflation excluding fresh food had ticked up 0.1 percentage point to a 2-month high of 3.0%, which was as analysts had predicted and associated. Japan’s seasonally adjusted trade deficit widened from 303 billion yen in September to JPY 422 billion last month; the unadjusted deficit of 232 billion yen was less than half as much as its year-earlier size of JPY 500 billion.
GDP growth in Singapore last quarter got revised notably upward to 2.4% from 2Q and 4.2% versus 3Q 2024.
In Mexico, GDP contracted 0.3% in the third quarter and resulted in the first negative year-on-year growth (albeit just -0.1%) in 15 quarters.
French business confidence rebounded in November to a 17-month high reading of 97.6 from 96.5 in October. That still below its long-term mean, which is set at 100. The labor market index printed at a 5-month high of 96.5. Confidence in service industries was at a 7-month high, but manufacturing took a step backward.
British consumer confidence softened a tad more than forecast to a reading of -19 in November from -17 in October. Even more surprising, retail sales volume in the U.K. during October dropped by 1.1%, cutting its year-on-year increase to 0.2% from 1.0% posted in the 12 months between September 2024 and September 2025.
Chinese foreign direct investment in January-October recorded a year-on-year drop of 10.3% versus a 27.1% decline in full-2024. Foreign companies are seeking alternative production options to China.
Irish wholesale prices in October were 3.5% lower than a year earlier. That’s the ninth on-year drop in a row. Slovenian producer prices inflation of 1.3% last month was the most in 4 months. And in Malaysia, consumer price inflation edged down to a 2-month low of 1.3% last month, not far above the 57-month low of 1.1% in June.
Copyright 2025, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved.
Tags: British retail sales, French business confidence, preliminary purchasing manager surveys in November 2025
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