 "29 minutes that singed the world")
The new year hasn't been happy for the Chinese stock market. On Monday, the markets had slid 7%, triggering suspension of trading. And on Thursday, trading was suspended in about 30 minutes after the markets tanked about 7%, sending shivers across the globe. A brief look at what happened:
- The markets opened at 9:30 am (1.30 am GMT) in Shanghai, but the circuit breakers tripped soon after, when the index fell 5%
Trading was resumed, only to end 29 minutes into the trading day, with the markets falling around 7%
- This marked the shortest trading day in the index's 25-year history, The Wall Street Journal reported. Of the 29 minutes, trading was carried out for roughly 14 minutes
- Mirroring the markets, the yuan fell to a five-year low of 6.5914 to the dollar, after the Chinese central bank set the official rate at 6.5646, the lowest since March 2011
- The yuan has lost over 6% since August last year
Central bank data showed China's foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, posted their biggest annual drop on record in 2015
Foreign exchange reserves fell $512.66 billion in 2015 to $3.33 trillion
They dropped $107.9 billion in December alone, the biggest monthly decline on record Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg and news reports