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New York - US stocks tumbled in heavy volume on Monday, with more than 1 000 stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange hitting 52-week lows, after rating agency Standard & Poor’s cut the United States’ perfect AAA credit rating, rattling already jittery investors.
World stocks slid to near 11-month lows overshadowing relief that the European Central Bank was buying Italian and Spanish government bonds in the latest move to staunch the eurozone debt crisis.
The price of gold topped $1700 as investors fled to safe-haven assets. The Swiss franc and the yen soared against the dollar and euro. Traders said the European Central Bank bought Spanish and Italian debt early in the European session after it said on Sunday it would “actively implement” its bond-buying program.
That helped lift the euro to a high of $1.4432 earlier. But the ECB purchases did little to alleviate concern the eurozone’s debt crisis is moving into core countries.
South Africa’s index of blue chips, the Top-40, closed 3.13% lower, booking its lowest finish since September 2010. Share prices have not escaped the hammering that has hit other global stock markets as investors spooked by debt worries in Europe and a United States ratings downgrade flee for less risky assets such as gold.
On Monday, about 7 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq by 1600 GMT, making it the second-busiest morning of the year so far.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 30 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, slightly fewer than nine stocks fell every one that rose.
Among the companies hitting 52-week lows were JPMorgan Chase & Co, down 5.6% at $35.48, after hitting a low of $35.30. Goldman Sachs fell 5.3% to $118.52, after hitting a low of $118.43.
Bank of America tumbled 14.3% to $7 after hitting a 52-week low of $6.83 earlier, and Cisco Systems fell 3.8% to $14.36 after falling to as low as $14.23.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 3.12%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 3.77% and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 3.88%.
The FTSE 100 fell for the seventh consecutive trading day as miners , banks and integrated oil stocks led London’s blue-chip index down 3.4%, its lowest closing level since July 7, 2010.
In Frankfurt the DAX dropped 5.02% and in Paris, the CAC-40 slid 4.68%.
The FTSE volatility index , a gauge of investor fear, shot up more than 28% on Monday, having risen all last week.
The sell-off since July 29 wiped $3.4 trillion off the value of world stocks, a sum equivalent to Germany’s GDP. But the retreat on equity markets is still some way less pronounced than the crashes 2008 or 1987.
World stocks slid to near 11-month lows overshadowing relief that the European Central Bank was buying Italian and Spanish government bonds in the latest move to staunch the eurozone debt crisis.
The price of gold topped $1700 as investors fled to safe-haven assets. The Swiss franc and the yen soared against the dollar and euro. Traders said the European Central Bank bought Spanish and Italian debt early in the European session after it said on Sunday it would “actively implement” its bond-buying program.
That helped lift the euro to a high of $1.4432 earlier. But the ECB purchases did little to alleviate concern the eurozone’s debt crisis is moving into core countries.
South Africa’s index of blue chips, the Top-40, closed 3.13% lower, booking its lowest finish since September 2010. Share prices have not escaped the hammering that has hit other global stock markets as investors spooked by debt worries in Europe and a United States ratings downgrade flee for less risky assets such as gold.
On Monday, about 7 billion shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE Amex and Nasdaq by 1600 GMT, making it the second-busiest morning of the year so far.
Declining stocks outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by a ratio of 30 to 1, while on the Nasdaq, slightly fewer than nine stocks fell every one that rose.
Among the companies hitting 52-week lows were JPMorgan Chase & Co, down 5.6% at $35.48, after hitting a low of $35.30. Goldman Sachs fell 5.3% to $118.52, after hitting a low of $118.43.
Bank of America tumbled 14.3% to $7 after hitting a 52-week low of $6.83 earlier, and Cisco Systems fell 3.8% to $14.36 after falling to as low as $14.23.
The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 3.12%, the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index fell 3.77% and the Nasdaq Composite Index lost 3.88%.
The FTSE 100 fell for the seventh consecutive trading day as miners , banks and integrated oil stocks led London’s blue-chip index down 3.4%, its lowest closing level since July 7, 2010.
In Frankfurt the DAX dropped 5.02% and in Paris, the CAC-40 slid 4.68%.
The FTSE volatility index , a gauge of investor fear, shot up more than 28% on Monday, having risen all last week.
The sell-off since July 29 wiped $3.4 trillion off the value of world stocks, a sum equivalent to Germany’s GDP. But the retreat on equity markets is still some way less pronounced than the crashes 2008 or 1987.
