World Markets Watchlist: February 9, 2026

Group 1 - Eight of the nine indexes on the world markets watch list posted year-to-date gains through February 9, 2026, with Japan's Nikkei 225 leading at a gain of 12.0% [1] - Hong Kong's Hang Seng index follows with a year-to-date gain of 5.5%, while England's FTSE 100 has a gain of 4.6% [1] - India's BSE SENSEX is the only index showing a year-to-date loss, currently at -1.4% [1] Group 2 - A table provides context on the current values of each index, their all-time peaks, the dates of those peaks, and the distance from record levels [2] - The performance of world markets is analyzed since the last recession, starting from February 3, 2020, which is the official NBER recession start date [3] - A comparative performance chart illustrates the relative performance of world markets since March 9, 2009, with various indexes indexed to 800 on that date [4] - Another visualization starts from October 9, 2007, marking a previous closing high for the S&P 500 and representing a midpoint of market peaks [5]