Asian stocks slide into Fed mode, shorts stalk banks
Trade was thinned by holidays in China and Japan, though markets in Hong Kong were open and MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan dropped 0.7%. Overnight, tumbling regional bank stocks dragged the S&P 500 down 1.2% and oil dived more than 5% on fears that shaky bank confidence and signs of weakness in the U.S. job market were harbingers of a looming broader slowdown.
