Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Wall Street plunges; Dow ends 100 pts down & Asian markets trading lower; Nikkei slips 2.7%

In the US markets, stocks there ended lower after concerns on the future of the big 3 US auto majors continued to hover. General Motors shares tumbled 15% after Standard & Poor's ratings services and Moody's investor’s service downgraded ratings on Chrysler and Ford Motors.

In economic data, the Commerce Department held its estimate at -0.5% for Q3 GDP, the expectations were unrevised.

In housing data, new home sales slowed to the slowest pace since 1991, falling 2.9% to an annual rate of 407,000 in November. Existing home sales numbers meanwhile plunged to a record 8.6%.

In other draggers of the day, financial stocks like Bank of America and Citigroup too ended weak.

The Dow Jones plunged 100.28 points, or 1.18%, to 8,419.49. The S&P 500 index shed 8.47 points, or 0.97%, to 863.16. The Nasdaq composite index slipped 10.81 points, or 0.71%, to 1,521.54.

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