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Danish stocks plummet as Asia fears spread

UPDATED: The C20 Cap Index ended Monday down 4.7 percent, the biggest single-day fall since 2011, as global traders face "total panic" big drops on the Chinese market.

Danish stocks plummet as Asia fears spread
A man walks past a board showing stock market prices inside a brokerage in New Taipei city, Taiwan, August 24, 2015. Taiwan stocks sank by more than 6 percent on Monday morning, following bruising los
The Danish blue chip index C20 ended Monday's trading down 4.7 percent following sharp falls in Asian markets that opened earlier on Monday.
 
The fall represents the largest single-day decrease on the index since it was established in 2011 just days after the previous single-day record fall was recorded
 
All 20 Danish blue chip companies ended Monday in the red, with Danske Bank and A.P. Møller-Mærsk stocks taking the biggest hit. Other major Danish companies including Carlsberg, Pandora, Vestas and Christian Hansen also saw major losses.
 
 
Several Chinese indices fell by around eight percent in early trading, while bourses in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan were also hit hard. The Tokyo-based Nikkei index fell by 3.21 percent in morning trading to below 19,000 points, its lowest point in the last five months.
 
“The market has been nervous the past few days and many are fearing a recession in China,” Mads Zink, Danske Bank's head trader, told Ritzau Finans.
 
TV2's financial commentator Ole Krohn said Monday's trading “appears to be total panic”. 
 
Other European markets took major falls on Monday, including London, where the FTSE plunged 2.8 percent at the start of trading. Germany's DAX stock market index lost 3.24 percent of its value to fall below 10,000 points for the first time since January. 
 
US markets also plummeted on Monday, with the Dow Jones industrial average down by more than 1,000 points to start the day. 
 
The financial unrest in Asia and Europe comes days after Wall Street suffered its biggest one-day loss in almost four years.
 
On Monday North Sea and US oil prices – a major marker of economic stability – dropped by just over a barrel to around 44 and 39 dollars respectively. The dollar also weakened against both the euro and the Japanese yen.
 
Market observers have been watching China anxiously for weeks as the country suffers an abrupt slowdown in economic growth.
 
The latest loss of value comes in spite of massive Chinese government efforts in recent weeks to shore up markets in the country.
 
Shanghai's stock market has now lost all of the value it had added in the course of 2015.
 
The C20 drop on Monday followed a 3.23 percent fall on Thursday and a 2.6 percent decrease on Friday. 

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SAS

‘We agree to disagree’: Still no progress in marathon SAS strike talks

By lunchtime on Friday, talks between the Scandinavian airline SAS and unions representing striking pilots were still stuck on "difficult issues".

'We agree to disagree': Still no progress in marathon SAS strike talks

“We agree that we disagree,” Roger Klokset, from the Norwegian pilots’ union, said at lunchtime outside the headquarters of the Confederation of Swedish Enterprise in Stockholm, where talks are taking place. “We are still working to find a solution, and so long as there is still some point in continuing negotiations, we will do that.” 

Mats Ruland, a mediator for the Norwegian government, said that there were “still several difficult issues which need to be solved”. 

At 1pm on Friday, the two sides took a short break from the talks for lunch, after starting at 9am. On Thursday, they negotiated for 15 hours, breaking off at 1am on Friday morning. 

READ ALSO: What’s the latest on the SAS plane strike?

Marianne Hernæs, SAS’s negotiator on Friday told journalists she was tired after sitting at the negotiating table long into the night. 

“We need to find a model where we can meet in the middle and which can ensure that we pull in the income that we are dependent on,” she said. 

Klokset said that there was “a good atmosphere” in the talks, and that the unions were sticking together to represent their members.

“I think we’ve been extremely flexible so far. It’s ‘out of this world’,’ said Henrik Thyregod, with the Danish pilots’ union. 

“This could have been solved back in December if SAS had not made unreasonable demands on the pilots,” Klokset added. 

The strike, which is now in its 12th day, has cost SAS up to 130m kronor a day, with 2,550 flights cancelled by Thursday, affecting 270,000 passengers. 

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