Dollar sitsback while Lira bounces back among market

Emerging market stocks fell on Monday, tracking a global-sell off with investors ditching shares and piling into the safety of bonds on concerns over slowing global growth and fears of a U.S. recession. The U.S. dollar took a back seat, lifting most developing world currencies with Turkey's lira in recovery mode after plunging as much as 5 per cent in the previous session.

Weak economic data from Europe triggered a worldwide sell-off on Friday which worsened after more disappointing numbers from the U.S. came in, fanning global growth fears. The U.S. yield curve inverted on Friday for the first time since mid-2007, the strongest indication of a possible recession for the world's largest economy.

"The fact that Fed turned dovish and suddenly we had disappointing data brought back the bears," said Trieu Pham, EM Credit Research at ING. MSCI's index for emerging market shares fell 1.4 per cent, on track to record its biggest one-day fall this year with indices falling across the board led by Asia.

China's blue-chip index and Hong Kong shares fell more than 2 per cent on growth fears and on caution ahead of fresh U.S.-China trade talks. Indices in Johannesburg, Mumbai and Istanbul all fell, tracking the global sell-off.

Stocks on Moscow's MOEX index recovered marginally from initial falls, while the rouble rose 0.3 per cent as the market digested a much-anticipated U.S. report on Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election. A 22-month long investigation led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller ended with a finding that no one in President Donald Trump's campaign "conspired or coordinated with the Russian government" in the 2016 election.

"Conceptually it should be supportive if we now assign a slightly lower likelihood of sanctions (on Russia)," said Guido Chamorro, portfolio manager at Pictet Asset Management. Most currencies in the developing world benefited from the dollar's undermined position fanned by inversion of the U.S. bond yield curve. Turkey's lira managed to bounce back 2 per cent after Friday's more than 5 per cent tumble, with the central bank pledging to strengthen reserves and manufacturing confidence rising.

"The recent statement from the central bank was better than 2018 but it's still lacking a stronger action," said Per Hammarlund, chief EM strategist, SEB. "The banking regulator needs to be more clear on what they will do with bad loans, the non-performing loans in the economy," he added.

In emerging Europe, Hungary's forint and the Czech crown rose over 0.3 per cent against the dollar but caution remained amid economic slowdown fears in Europe.