US Markets Plunge In Mindless Sell-Off

Sydney, Oct 10, 2008 (ABN Newswire) - US shares plunged in a period of sustained selling over the last two hours of trading in New York that saw the major indices close down a huge 5% to 7% or more.

After rising at first (despite a late fall in Europe), the market traded flat until about two hours to go when the selling started.

The sell off coincided with the one year anniversary of the all time high, and with the removal of a ban on short selling financial stocks and others like the once mighty General Electric.

That was a recipe for disaster from a bunch of market regulators who have been consistently behind the ball.

The Dow fell below 9,000 for the first time since 2003 as the shorts attacked Morgan Stanley and GE in particular. 



General Motors was sold off heavily as well on a gloomy forecast about future car sales in the US and around the world for the next couple of years. Ford also tanked.

The Dow closed under 8700, down 679 points or 7.3%. The S&P 500 fell 7.6% or 75 points to its lowest level since May 2003.The market peaked around 1565 on the S&P 500, so its off 42%.

European shares and US stock futures fell in to close down for another day, though the sense of blind panic wasn't there.

That was after an early promising start saw indexes turn strongly positive.

That was due to a rebound in Asia and IBM's solid third quarter profit report, plus the impact of the UK bank bailout and co-ordinated rate cuts.

But there was more action on bailing out banks with Dexia guaranteed over the next year at least by France, Belgium and Luxembourg. 

Iceland nationalised its third major bank and the European central Bank pumped in more cash into the euromarkets, and said there would be unlimited funds for lending until at least January 20 next year.

All this activity ended up weighing on markets and ending the earlier positive tone.

The futures market had our stocks down 1.5% with a couple of hours to go, but as Wall Street tanked, the SPI fell to be down 180 points, or around 4.5%.

China fell in late trading and Japan reversed earlier gains, but the loss was just 0.5% compared to Wednesday's panic driven 9%-plus plunge. 

The Australian ASX200 was off 1.5% drop which contained a bit more than just the re-weighting of the CBA. Tokyo was down just 0.5% on the Nikkei, but Hong Kong bounced 3.3% on the second rate cut in as many days.

The Dow Stoxx 600 in Europe finished down 2% after being up earlier in the day. 

The MSCI Asia Pacific Index ended up 1.0%.

London was up 3.6% on the FTSE 100 as banks and resource stocks rose after this week's big sell-down. But it closed down 1.2%.

The Paris CAC 40 shed 1.55% and the Frankfurt Dax lost 2.53%.The Dax had earlier been up 2.6% and France's CAC was up 3%.

Russia's market jumped sharply, up 17% at one stage after Wednesday's 14% fall. The $US36 billion in emergency funding to banks will start later today, according to media reports.

Asian shares did better after some of the region's central banks lowered interest rates to limit the economic impact of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. 

The cuts followed coordinated rate reductions yesterday by the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Bank of England, Bank of Canada and Sweden's Riksbank.

Apart from Australia, many Asia Pacific markets rose for the first time for more than a week as hopes grew of a boost to global economic growth as central banks in Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong cut interest rates to follow coordinated monetary loosening in the UK, America, Europe and China.

The Bank of Korea and Taiwan's central bank lowered their rates by 0.25% and Hong Kong cut its benchmark to 2%, its second cut in as many days. The Hong Kong market's 3.3% rise came after dropping 8.2% on Wednesday.

The Bank of Japan, which kept its policy rate at 0.5% pumped US20 billion into the financial system.

The Australian dollar ended firmer for the first time in 10 days as the co-ordinated rate cut by major central banks helped stem the currency's recent plunge.

In the overnight session, the currency slipped to a five-year low of 64.54 US cents, but by last night it had recovered 10% to over 70 US cents, and then back to 68 US cents. 

The volatility is a sign of a lack of knowledge by traders who are looking to make money from the volatility, not fundamentals.

Oil continued to edge lower in Asian trading. Nymex light sweet crude fell by less than a dollar a barrel to $US86.59. Gold dropped to $US892.33 an ounce in New York. Opec is calling a conference for next month to look at production cuts.

The Indonesian market remained closed after trading was suspended on Wednesday after the second fall of more than ten per cent in the week. India was closed for a holiday.

Australia was the only major market to disappoint. The ASX 200 lost 1.5% or 67 points at 4321. It was the lowest close since July 20, 2005.

The CBA closed at $42.40, down 6% after resuming trading after raising $2 billion from to pay for the BankWest purchase: it sold shares for $38 each.

NAB fell 62 cents to $23.73, the ANZ lost 35 cents to $16.65 and Westpac eased 17 cents to $21.50. Macquarie lost  $1.00, or 3.1%, to $31.50.

BHP Billiton fell 6 cents to $29.80, while Rio Tinto lost $3.11, or 3.8%, to $78.01. The ratio of BHP to Rio shares traded was at the lowest since BHP made its bid for its mining rival, trading at 2.61 shares for each Rio share. The offer is 3.4 BHP shares for each Rio unit.

Brambles rose after it said its pallet business CHEP USA had finally reached an agreement with US retailer Wal Mart to continue participating in its logistics network. Brambles shares added 24 cents, or 3.3%, to $7.59.


 
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