- Signs of distress in financial markets accumulated amid deepening concern over the health of the global economy, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average more than 300 points lower.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index headed for its lowest close in 22 months, as US shares joined a retreat in European and emerging-market stocks.
Investors sought the safest assets, sending yields on Treasury 10-year notes to the lowest level in a year, and those on Germany’s 10-year bunds to the lowest since April.
Meanwhile, yields on bonds of Europe’s most-indebted countries rose, while the cost of protecting against default by US junk-rated companies climbed to the highest since 2012.
- Asian share markets were scorched on Tuesday as stability concerns put a torch to European bank stocks and sent investors stampeding to only the safest of safe haven assets.
The jump in the yen piled further pressure on Japan's Nikkei .N225 which sank 3.4 percent. MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 0.8 percent, and would have been lower if not for holidays in many centers.
- Banks and technology shares fell sharply Monday. Facebook sank 4% and Amazon, which more than doubled last year, lost 3%.
The losses brought the Nasdaq composite index down almost 20% from its record high last year.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 177, or 1.1%, to 16,027. It was down as much as 401 earlier.
- Growth sensitive sectors weighed on the FTSE 100 on Monday as concern over the state of the global economy mounted.
Financial stocks took more than 50 points off the FTSE 100, with the consumer discretionary sector and energy shares combining to take off over another 35 points.
Traders said concerns over bank margins in a negative interest rate environment were hurting the bank sector after central banks in Europe and Japan delivered dovish messages in January.
- Greece’s stock market plunged about eight per cent on Monday on concerns that the bailout review had hit a snag.
Without a positive assessment of Greece’s bailout reforms, talks on debt relief desperately sought by Athens cannot take place.
Reference: Reuters, irishexaminer, shropshirestar,
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