Wall Street sees losses at midday

Asia-Pacific region equities markets were mostly higher on Tuesday. The exception was the Shanghai Composite, which dropped 0.07 percent to 4,210.33 on the session. In India, the Sensex added 0.4 percent to 15,794.92. The Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was 0.46 percent higher to 23,472.88, while in Singapore the Straits Times index gained 0.64 percent to 3,665.13. In Taiwan, the Taiex was up 1.27 percent to 9,744.06. Australia’s Sydney Ordinaries added 0.43 percent to 6,455.5, while the S&P/ASX200 gained 0.5 percent to 6,422.3. In Tokyo, the Nikkei was 0.2 percent higher to 18,002 and the Topix index advanced 0.5 percent to 1,765.99.

The European markets saw significant declines. The FTSE Eurofirst 300 dropped 1.4 percent to 1,587.23. The least of the losers in terms of percentage was the IBEX, which was down 0.98 percent to 14,909.7 in Madrid. In Paris the CAC-40 was 1.69 percent lower to 5,907.47, while the Dax fell 1.73 percent to 7,806.79 in Frankfurt. London’s markets also saw big losses on the session. The FTSE 100 fell 1.9 percent to 6,498.7, while the FTSE 250 dropped 1.68 percent to 11,584.

The New York equities markets were lower at midday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was 0.69 percent lower to 13,858.80, while the Nasdaq Composite had dropped 0.54 percent to 2,676.18 and the S&P 500 was down 0.69 percent to 1,530.96.

Crude oil prices fell again, while prices for both precious and base metals were mixed.

Both the euro and sterling found new highs versus the US dollar as the greenback weakened again. Meanwhile, prices on US Treasury bonds were higher and yields lower as they benefited from troubles among corporate bonds and subprime lenders.

Discuss this in the Finance Markets forums

Story link: Wall Street sees losses at midday