Wave of Pessimism Engulfs Markets

[Excerpted from Bill Cara's Daily Report]

A wave of pessimism has engulfed equity markets. Following Wednesday’s pull-back in NY, the selling continued in Asia-Pacific equity markets. Thursday, the biggest losers were Hong Kong (-3.8% to 14415.9) and Tokyo (-3.9% to 8876.4), while others like Shanghai (-2.4% to 1878.2) and Australia (-2.3% to 3643.6) were also major losers.

Earlier Thursday morning (7:25am ET), the European bourses were very soft: French CAC -1.75%; German DAX -0.89%; and UK FTSE -1.24%. Moments ago, the Bank of England dropped its key lending rate to 1.5% and immediately the Pound zoomed to 1.53 against the USD, a three-week high.

North American markets were extremely weak yesterday, particularly in Financials (XLF -5.2%) and Industrials (XLI -4.5%). All sectors were down, but as expected the “defensive” pair of Consumer Staples (XLP -1.0%) and Healthcare (XLV -0.9%) were relatively better off, ie, they sold off less.

At the close in NY, the DJIA (-245.4 -2.72% to 8967.7), S&P 500 (-28.05 -3.00% to 906.65) and NASDAQ Composite (-53.32 -3.23% to 1599.06) were down sharply from a very weak open.

The Toronto Composite (-350.77 -3.70% to 9121.32) and Venture Board (-24.79 -2.71% to 888.32) also crashed.

Coal, base metal miners and precious metal miners led the slide, but hotels, gaming and semi-conductors were also very weak.

I’m running late, and have other commitments, so will have to cut this short. Sorry.

Comments

[Steve in TN:]

I appreciate the up-to-date information, but where's the analysis or opinion?

Jan 08 11:02 AM

[drone:]

"A wave of pessimism..." That's the analysis.


On Jan 08 11:02 AM SteveTN wrote:

> I appreciate the up-to-date information, but where's the analysis
> or opinion?

Jan 09 10:56 AM