China fall ranked 34th biggest single-day drop in a decade

Chinese stocks plunged on Monday, suffering their biggest single-day drop in eight years in percentage terms, as CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen fell 8.6 per cent, while the Shanghai Composite Index lost 8.5 per cent.

Although the fall seems steep, it is ranked 34th globally in the biggest single-day falls in percentage terms in the past decade across major markets. At 14.84 per cent, the stock exchange of Thailand saw the steepest single-day fall in percentage terms in December 2006, data suggest, as the Bank of Thailand and the finance ministry imposed currency controls to curb the strength of the Thai baht.

The following day, however, the Thai SET Index surged 11 per cent and witnessed its biggest gain in eight years, reports suggest.

Data reveal eight of the top 10 biggest single-day falls in major stock indexes across the globe in the past decade happened after the Lehman Brothers crisis in 2008, which saw most indices slip 10.18-12.7 per cent. Indian markets tumbled too, with the Sensex slipping 11 per cent on October 24, 2008. By comparison, the Sensex closed two per cent lower at 27,561 levels.

The biggest single-day drops of the past decade
 

Among major declines other than those during the 2008 crisis, Japan’s Nikkei, however, dropped 10 per cent on March 15, 2011, the second working day after the massive earthquake in the northeast part of Japan and continued to drift lower for the most part of 2011.