Markets staggering after day of huge losses
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Conventional wisdom on Wall Street is that the time to buy is when there is blood in the streets. Global markets were hemorrhaging at a number of major arteries Monday, when one of the few places where buyers could be found was the very market that provoked a triple-digit slide on Wall Street.
Investors fleeing for safety rushed into freshly downgraded U.S. Treasuries, pushing yields on 10-year federal debt lower. Meanwhile, major stock market indexes extended losses that had accelerated last week following the compromise on lifting the federal debt ceiling and trimming the budget deficit.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 634.76, or 5.5 percent, finishing at 10,809.85. It was the sixth-largest point drop in the bellwether index's history and came on the heels of a 513-point drop Thursday. However, on a percentage basis, Monday's slide was not among the 20 worst days in Wall Street history.
The Dow is off nearly 16 percent since hitting a six-month high of 12,810.54 on April 29 and is down more than 6 percent for the year.
A broader market barometer, the S&P 500 index, declined 6.7 percent to close at 1,119.46, down 79.92. The S&P 500 is off 18 percent since April 29 and down 11 percent for the year.
The blood-letting globally continued today as Asian stocks dropped for a sixth day and oil sank below $80 a barrel.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index plunged 4.4 percent to 8,694.31 in the morning session, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng index plummeted 7.3 percent to 18,998.51. South Korea's Kospi index plummeted 8.2 percent to 1,716.05.
Elsewhere, Australia's benchmark S&P/ASX-200 index lost 4.5 percent to 3,806.70. Taiwan's TAIEX dropped 4.9 percent and New Zealand's benchmark NZX 50 index shed 3.8 percent.
Benchmark crude fell $3.96 to $77.40 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. That is the lowest settlement price of the year for crude, but it's still higher than the $71.63 per barrel low of the past 12 months.
First Published August 9, 2011 12:00 am
