Singapore’s STI plunges 8.5%, Japan’s Nikkei drops over 8% as Asian markets sell off sharply

[SINGAPORE] The selloff continued as Asian markets tumbled on Monday (Apr 7) morning, following US President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement last Wednesday.

The Straits Times Index (STI) plummeted by 8.5 per cent, falling below 3,500 with a drop of more than 325 points. This marked the largest intraday decline since the STI crashed 8.9 per cent during the subprime mortgage crisis on Oct 24, 2008, and surpassed the 8.4 per cent tumble that the index took during the Covid pandemic-induced crash on Mar 23, 2020.

Singapore bank DBS fell by more than 10.6 per cent, with OCBC declining more than 7 per cent, while UOB slid 8.8 per cent.

Among the largest decliners were maritime stocks Seatrium tumbling 10.3 per cent, Yangzijiang Shipbuilding down 7.8 per cent, and Keppel falling 7.6 per cent. Meanwhile, local bourse SGX fell by more than 7.7 per cent.

The Nikkei 225 index in Japan fell about 8.6 per cent shortly after trading opened, following a 5.4 per cent drop last week in the two days following the announcement on Wednesday. The yen strengthened against the Singapore dollar by 2.3 per cent.

In Australia, despite the country only being hit with 10 per cent baseline tariffs, the ASX 200 index slid more than 6 per cent in the morning. The Australian dollar plummeted to just 81 Singapore cents, a level that was last seen in April 2020 during the Covid pandemic-induced crash.

South Korea saw the Kospi index retreat by up to 5.2 per cent, falling almost 100 points since closing on Friday. In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng index slid more than 2,000 points in a 9.3 per cent decline.

Dow futures continued to plunge, falling more than 1,400 points, or 3.7 per cent, while S&P futures dropped more than 4.8 per cent.

The US dollar has strengthened more than 1 per cent against the Singapore dollar since Friday, last fetching SGD$1.3464 on Monday morning.