By David Gaffen and Francesco Canepa
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - A full-scale flight from emerging market assets accelerated on Friday, setting global shares on course for their worst week this year and driving investors to safe-haven assets including U.S. Treasuries, the yen, and gold.
Wall Street opened lower, extending selling to a second day. Concerns about slower growth in China, reduced support from U.S. monetary policy and political problems in Turkey, Argentina and Ukraine drove the selling.
The Turkish lira hit a record low. Argentina's peso fell again after the central bank abandoned its support of the currency.
The declines mirror moves from last June when developing country stocks fell almost 18 percent over about two months and hit global shares.
The broad nature of this selloff combines country-specific problems with the reality that reduced U.S. Federal Reserve bond buying reduces liquidity that has in the past boosted higher-yielding emerging markets assets.
"We expect the emerging market selloff to get worse before it starts getting better," said Lorne Baring, managing director of B Capital Wealth Management in Geneva.
"There's definitely contagion spreading and it's crossing over from emerging to developed in terms of sentiment."
Activity was heavy in exchange-traded funds focused on emerging markets. The iShares Morgan Stanley EM ETF
An MSCI index of emerging market shares was down 1.4 percent. Since mid-October, the index has lost more than 9 percent. The MSCI all-country world equity index was down 1 percent.
Funds have continued to flee the sector. In the week ended Jan 22, data from Thomson Reuters Lipper service showed outflows from U.S.-domiciled emerging market equity funds of $422.41 million, the sixth week of outflows out of the last seven.
Emerging market debt funds saw the 32nd week of outflows out of the last 35, with $200 million in net redemptions from the 250 funds tracked by Lipper.
"I think you've got a bit further to go in terms of outflows from emerging markets," said Mark Tinker, head of AXA Framlington Asia.
The Turkish lira hit a new record low of 2.33 to the dollar, even after the central bank spent at least $2 billion trying to prop it up on Thursday.
Turkey's new dollar bond, first sold on Wednesday, fell below its launch price. The cost of insuring against a Turkish default rose to an 18-month high and Ukraine's debt insurance costs hit their highest since Kiev agreed a rescue deal with Russia in December.
Argentina decided to loosen strict foreign exchange controls a day after the peso suffered its steepest daily decline since the country's 2002 financial crisis. On Friday, it was down 2.8 percent.
On Wall Street, the S&P 500 lost 12.72 points or 0.7 percent, to 1,815.29.
European shares were down, especially in firms exposed to emerging markets, tracking Asian stocks lower. Spain's IBEX index, highly exposed to Latin America, lagged other regional bourses, falling 2.9 percent.
The dollar index <.DXY> edged lower after losing 0.9 percent against a basket of major currencies, including the euro, yen, Swiss franc and sterling, on Thursday. That was its worst one-day performance in three months.
A flight to safety lifted currencies backed by a current account surplus, such as the Japanese yen and Swiss franc, and highly-rated government bonds. German Bund futures rose and 10-year U.S. Treasury yields hit an eight-week low below 2.75 percent.
Gold traded close to its highest level in nine weeks and was poised for a fifth straight weekly climb as weaker equities burnished its safe-haven appeal. Spot gold rose to $1266.90, up from $1263.95.
(Additional reporting by Dan Bases and Toni Vorobyova; editing by Nigel Stephenson and Nick Zieminski)
