NEW YORK, Feb 8: Global stock markets were walloped with a collective loss of $5.2 trillion in the month of January as investors scurried for cover in the face of economic uncertainty, a report showed on Friday.

Standard & Poor’s, a US credit rating agency that manages a number of global stock indexes, said 50 of the 52 main global equity markets lost ground in January.

Emerging markets fell an average of 12.44pc and developed markets lost 7.83pc to register one of the worst ever starts to a new year, S&P said in its review.

“There were few safe havens in January as 50 of the 52 global equity markets ended the month in negative territory, with 25 of them posting double- digit losses,” said Howard Silverblatt, a senior analyst at S&P.

All 26 developed equity markets posted negative returns in January, with 16 losing at least 10 per cent of their value.

The only markets to see gains were in Morocco (up 10.17pc) and Jordan (up 3.11pc).

Turkey was hit hardest during the month losing 22.70pc followed by China (21.40pc), Russia (16.12pc) and India (16pc).

The decline in the US was comparatively mild at 6.07pc, but German shares slumped 13.7pc and French stocks lost 12.3pc.

—AFP