Major falls on Wall Street

China News.Net
Thursday 7th August, 2008

U.S. stocks have fallen sharply on Thursday, two days after a major rebound.

Profit-taking and reassessments of the economic outlook in America, and elsewhere, weighed on sentiment.

Wal-Mart announced lower-than-expected retail sales for July, the number of people applying for jobless benefits jumped more-than-expected and hit a six-year high, while the price of oil also rose.

At the close of trading the Dow Jones Industrials were down a hefty 224.64 points or 1.93% at 11,431.43.

The Nasdaq Composite was off 22.65 points or 0.95% at 2,355.73.

The Standad and Poor's 500 was down 23.13 points or 1.79% at 1,266.06.

Despite the falls in equity markets the U.S. dollar continued to gain ground, particularly against the euro.

Around the New York close the euro was quoted at 1.5325. The Japanese yen was a touch lower at 109.38, while the British pound was slightly weaker at 1.9424.

The Swiss franc edged down to 1.0615, and the Australian dollar to .9056. The Canadian dollar dropped markedly to 1.0530.

Have your say on this story