Here are five facts about stock markets to put the more than one year sell off in perspective: 1. MSCI's all-country world index, a benchmark for major institutional investors, was trading just below 173 on Monday, roughly 2 percent above its Oct. 2002 low of 169.48. If it falls below that, it will be at lows last seen 14 years ago in July 1995, before the Asian and Russian crises and when the internet bubble had barely begun. 2. Japan's Nikkei average closed on Monday at 7,086.03, the lowest close since October 1982, when Ronald Reagan was US president, the Soviet Union was still in Afghanistan, and “Chariots of Fire” won best picture at the Oscars. 3. The DJ STOXX 600, a broad gauge of pan-European stocks, on Monday hit its lowest level since Sept. 1996, when Republican Bob Dole was challenging Bill Clinton for the US presidency, Boris Yeltsin was starting his second term as Russian president, and Britain's Prince Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales, had just been divorced. 4. Companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange had a market capitalisation of $9.36 trillion at the end of January, according to the World Federation of Exchanges. It is a loss of around $6.3 trillion since the end of 2007. That's about 40 percent of US Gross Domestic Product and roughly the same as Japan has spent on infrastructure over 17 years. 5. World stocks as measured by MSCI have fallen 24 percent in roughly 2-1/2 months this year. It is already the second largest fall in the 22 years that the all-country world index has existed and more than half of last year's percentage loss of 43.5 percent. Mathematically, were it to keep losing at its current average rate of 22 points a month, the index would hit zero by year end.
