US Stock Markets Suffer Significant Losses on Monday
Trading closed in New York with the Dow Jones calculating a loss of 1,495 points, a decline of 1.5 percent compared to the previous trading day. Minutes earlier, the broader S&P 500 was calculated at around 5,850 points, a 1.8 percent decline, while the technology-based Nasdaq 100 was at approximately 20,425 points, a 2.2 percent decline.
“While investors in Germany are rushing into stocks, there are long faces on Wall Street” said Jochen Stanzl, chief market analyst at CMC Markets. “Eighty percent of private investors there are either neutral or pessimistic and the CNN news channel even attributes to them ‘extreme fear.’ A similar gloomy mood is also visible at European stock markets, but only when looking at the small caps. They have risen since the start of the year, but only by less than half as much as the large blue-chip stocks.”
“The reluctance towards small caps reflects the persistent pessimism of investors towards the economic outlook in Europe. While the number of positive economic data is increasing, there is no talk of a boom in economic sentiment” Stanzl said.
The European common currency was stronger on Monday evening: one euro was worth 1.0481 US dollars and one US dollar was worth 0.9541 euros.
The gold price was able to profit significantly, with one fine ounce being sold for 2,891 US dollars in the evening (+1.2 percent), equivalent to 88.69 euros per gram.
Oil prices, on the other hand, dropped sharply: a barrel of the North Sea Brent type cost around 71.34 US dollars at around 22:00 German time on Monday evening, a decline of 147 cents or 2.0 percent compared to the close of the previous trading day.