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Dow Jones dips to 12-year low

24 February 2009 09:34 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Vahab Rzayev - APA-Economics. The major market indexes have staggered to their lowest levels in a decade, pulled lower by investors rapidly waning confidence. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell to April 1997 levels Monday, while the Dow Jones industrial average, down about 215 points, reached its levels of October 1997 as investors succumbed to their growing worries about a recession that has no end in sight, AP reports.
In the final hour of trading, the Dow dropped 215.76, or 2.93 percent, to 7,149.91, after earlier falling to its lowest level since Oct. 28, 1997.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 22.12, or 2.87 percent, to 747.93. Earlier, the S&P fell to its lowest level since April 1997.
The technology-laden Nasdaq composite index dropped 44.60, or 2.41 percent, to 1,406.46.
The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 13.08 or 3.18 percent, to 397.88.
Declining issues outnumbered advancers by about 5 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to a light 1.03 billion shares.
Among tech stocks, Hewlett-Packard Co. fell $1.56, or 5 percent, to $29.68, and Intel Corp. dove 67 cents, or 5.2 percent, to $12.11.
Other big decliners included General Electric Co., which dropped to a 14-year low of $8.80, but later traded down 48 cents, or 5.1 percent, at $8.90. Alcoa Inc. tumbled 43 cents, or 6.8 percent, to $5.86.
Some financial stocks managed to hold on to their earlier gains, including Citigroup, which rose 33 cents, or 16.7 percent, to $2.28, and Bank of America Corp., which gained 30 cents, or 7.9 percent, to $4.09.
Bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, fell to 2.78 percent from 2.79 percent late Friday. The yield on the three-month T-bill, considered one of the safest investments, rose to 0.28 percent from 0.26 percent Friday.
The dollar was mixed against other major currencies, while gold prices fell.
Light, sweet crude fell $1.90 to $38.13 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Overseas, Britain’s FTSE 100 fell 0.99 percent, Germany’s DAX index fell 1.95 percent, and France’s CAC-40 slipped 0.82 percent. Earlier, Japan’s Nikkei stock average fell 0.54 percent.