What's wrong with Asian stocks? Goldman and others offer some theories

The outlook is no better in China, where the Morgan Stanley strategists now forecast the CSI 300 Index to fall into a bear market that will last for the next year

It’s been a tumultuous two weeks for equity traders in Asia. And at some point, it just gets to be too much -- strategists from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to Morgan Stanley have begun slashing their forecasts.

They’ve have had to wrestle with a rapidly escalating trade war between the US and China, a Fed rate hike, the inconclusive Singapore summit between Trump and Kim, and even a series of hacks at South Korean crypto exchanges buffeting digital currencies.

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of stocks resumed its slide Thursday, extending a string of losses over six of the past seven trading