Stocks on Wall Street ended the worst week in 18 months, losing 771 points over four days in the blue chip index as sharemarkets continued their worldwide slide.In Europe, markets also fell the most in 18 months as investors continued to be spooked by the
Stocks on Wall Street ended the worst week in 18 months, losing 771 points over four days in the blue chip index as sharemarkets continued their worldwide slide.
In Europe, markets also fell the most in 18 months as investors continued to be spooked by the sovereign debt crisis. Asian markets also fell across the board.
On Wall Street, traders tried to regain their bearings after Thursday's frenzied market plunge, in which the Dow shed almost 1000 points during a half-hour trading glitch.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 140.72 points, or 1.3%, down at 10,380.06, a 5.7% drop for the week and the worst since October 2008.
The Dow briefly posted gains in the morning but also traded down as much as 273 points.
The S&P 500 index was down 1.5% to 1110.87, a 6.4% loss for the week and the worst since March 2009, while the Nasdaq Composite lost 2.3% at 2265.64 for a weekly drop of 8%.
The implications of Thursday’s plunge continued to reverberate on Friday, as exchanges and traders struggled to figure out precisely what went wrong and to cancel out trades based on erroneous data.
The only glimmer of positive news came from a US Labor Department report showing job growth at its fastest pace in four years.
Other markets: Europe, Asia down
In Europe, the Stoxx 600 index fell 3.9% to 237.19, a six-month low. Losses for the week totalled 8.7%, its largest weekly percentage drop since the week ended November 21, 2008, when it fell more than 11%.
The selloff came as European banks found it harder to get short-term funding from the interbank money market. That could require central banks to step in with short-term liquidity to keep up the flow of cash.
An inconclusive, though expected, result in the UK election added to investors’ worries.
London's FTSE 100 index lost 2.6% on the day, to 5123.02, and 7.8% for the week, its worst since March 2009.
The French CAC-40 index had the worst showing of the week among major national indexes, sliding 11% to 3392.59, a 2010 closing low.
In Germany, the DAX index was off 3.3% at 5715.09, losing 6.9% for the week.
In Asia, Japanese stocks fell sharply for the second consecutive day.
The Nikkei Stock Average of 225 companies fell 331.10 points, or 3.1%, to 10,364.59 after Thursday's 3.3% slide, leaving it down 6.3% for the week and 1.7% for the year.
Australia's S&P/ASX 200 gave up 2% to 4480.71, while China's Shanghai Composite slid 1.9% to 2688.38. Both were 2010 lows.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng index fell 1.1% to 19,920.29, leaving it down 8.9% for the year.
Commodities: Oil down, gold up
Crude-oil futures extended deep losses into a fourth day, setting a new 11-week low near $US74.50 a barrel.
Light, sweet crude oil for June delivery in New York dropped to a low of $US74.51, down 3.4%, or $US2.60 a barrel at its weakest point.
The contract settled down $US1.88 at $US75.23 a barrel.
Gold futures moved back into $US1200 territory. The June contract was up $US3.10, or 0.3%, at $US1200.40 an ounce in New York.
Currencies: Euro up, dollar up
The euro got a short boost on unconfirmed talk that a credit line could be in the works to inject liquidity into the stressed euro-zone banking sector.
It was at $US1.2707 from $US1.2629 late on Thursday in New York.
The dollar was at ¥91.66 from ¥90.25, while the euro was at ¥116.52 from ¥113.98.
The UK pound was at $US1.4680 from $US1.4853.
