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World market indices decline

23 February 2009 07:47 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev - APA-Economics. Wall Street ended another terrible week Friday, leaving major indexes down more than 6 percent as investors worried that the recession will persist for at least the rest of the year and that government intervention will do little to hasten a recovery, AP reports.
The Dow Jones industrials briefly went into positive territory, but quickly turned down again.
Salamone said investors had been too hopeful in late 2008 and at the start of this year that the new administration would be able to swiftly disentangle the economy.
The Dow industrials fell 100.28 points, or 1.3 percent, to 7,365.67 after earlier falling more than 215 points. On Thursday, the Dow broke through its Nov. 20 low of 7,552.29, and closed at its lowest level since Oct. 9, 2002.
The Dow’s 6.2 percent slide for the week was its worst performance since the week ended Oct. 10, when it lost 18.2 percent.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index on Friday fell 8.89, or 1.14 percent, to 770.05. The benchmark most watched by traders came within less than 2 points of its Nov. 20 close of 752.44, which was its lowest since April 1997. It remains above its Nov. 21 trading low of 741.02.
The Nasdaq composite index fell 1.59, or 0.11 percent, to 1,441.23.
For the week, the S&P fell 6.9 percent, while the Nasdaq lost 6.1 percent.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 3 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume came to a heavy 8.12 billion shares as options contracts expired. Volume on Thursday came to 5.64 billion shares.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 5.75, or 1.4 percent, to 410.96.
Other world indicators also fell sharply. Britain’s FTSE 100 declined 3.2 percent, Germany’s DAX index tumbled 4.8 percent, and France’s CAC-40 fell 4.3 percent.