Wednesday, August 15, 2007

US markets plunge again, Dow loses more than 200 points; Asia too sells off in response

U.S. stocks fell sharply Tuesday, taking the Dow industrials down by more than 200 points and within less than 30 points of the 13,000 level, as credit concerns came back to the fore.
Futures broker moved to stop withdrawals, exacerbating worries about a credit squeeze, while mortgage lender Thornburg Mortgage Asset Corp. saw its shares slide 46% after saying it faced margin calls and liquidity pressures.

Sentinel Management Group, a firm that oversees about $ 1.5 billion, won't satisfy redemption requests from clients and has stopped accepting new money, CME Group, operator of the world's largest derivatives exchange, said in confirming reports that prompted further unease on Wall Street. Goldman Sachs was off 4.4%; Morgan Stanley fell 3.5% and Lehman Bros. fell 6.3%. Hedge funds and other big institutional investors have taken a beating in recent weeks due to the market turbulence. On Monday, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said three funds it manages have had significant losses -- and infused $ 3 billion in capital into one of them.

Wall Street has been pummeled as a deepening credit crunch spooked the market, and led to unease about potential losses at financial firms and funds. The Federal Reserve, which has injected some $ 64 billion of liquidity into the U.S. banking system since Thursday, said it stood ready to act again should market conditions warrant. Home Depot Inc., the world's biggest home improvement chain, added to the slide when it said weakness in the housing market caused quarterly profit to slide.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 207 points at 13,028, as 29 of its 30 components fell, led by big drops in shares of Wal-Mart and Home Depot. The downturn in stocks was first triggered by a report from Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that profit will fall below expectations this year as consumers rein in spending. Broader stock indicators were lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index shed 26.38, or 1.82%, to 1,426.54, and the Nasdaq composite index fell 43.12, or 1.70%, to 2,499.12.

Trading volumes showed 1.79 billion shares exchanging hands on the New York Stock Exchange and 2.0 billion trading on the Nasdaq stock market. Declining issues topped gainers by 7 to 1 on the NYSE, and by more than 3 to 1 on Nasdaq.

Asian indexes too reacted sharply Wednesday to another sell-off on Wall Street. Financial shares continued to lose ground across Asia, led by those of Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Sompo Japan Insurance in Japan, and Macquarie Bank in Australia. Japan's Nikkei 225 index dropped 1.4% to 16,606.36, while the broader Topix index slid 1.7% to 1,609.12.

In Hong Kong, the Hang Seng Index dropped 2.8% to 21,383.40, while the 41-issue Hang Seng China Enterprise Index lost 3.5% at 11,961.87. Stocks in Indonesia tumbled the most, with the Jakarta Composite Index slumping 7% to 2,084.69. Elsewhere in the region, Australia's S&P/ASX 200 sank 2.4% to 5,819.10, New Zealand's NZX 50 index lost 1.6% to 4,000.27, Singapore's Straits Times Index dropped 3.2% to 3,278.18, China's Shanghai Composite fell 1.6% to 1,794.52 and Taiwan's Weighted index declined 3.5% to 8,602.90.



Indian ADRs end lower; Sterlite, MTNL, Satyam down more than 3%

Indian ADRs had a bad day yesterday and all of them ended in the red. Sterlite, MTNL, Satyam Computers were amongst the major losers, down more than 3%. In the technology pack, Infosys Technologies was down 2.73% at 48.15, Satyam Computers was down 3.07% at 26.17, Wipro was down 2.55% at 13.75 and Patni Computers was down 2.09% at 20.15.

In the non-tech pack, ICICI Bank was down 2.33% at 42, HDFC Bank was down 2.21% at 82.85, MTNL was down 3.49% at 6.63, VSNL was down 2.25% at 19.95, Dr Reddy's Lab was down 1.39% at 15.62, Tata Motors was down 1.22% at 16.95 and Sterlite Industries is down 3.92% at 14.95.

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