Equity markets around the world continued to reverberate from the effects of plunges on Wall Street in the first quarter. Among developed markets, only Austria and New Zealand were overall positive, while year-to-date losses in dollar terms ranged from Spain's 2.8 percent fall to Finland's 42.8 percent decline. The losses were paced by an 11.87 percent drop in the world information technology index.
In March alone, Finland was the only developed market with a positive result. The bottom three performers were Sweden, Singapore and Australia. The USA Index, a 9.1 percent loser the previous month, dropped 6.46 percent. The Japan Index fell 3.28 percent, the seventh consecutive monthly decline.