Before the bell: Wall Street set to join international sell-off

Posted Jan 22nd 2008 7:45AM by Melly Alazraki
Filed under: Before the Bell, Major Movement, International Markets, Earnings Reports, Apple Inc (AAPL), Market Matters, Johnson and Johnson (JNJ), Bank of America (BAC), duPont(E.I.)deNemours (DD), Wachovia Corp (WB), Economic Data, Oil, S and P 500, DJIA, Federal Reserve

While stock futures are not as low as earlier this morning, they're still pointing to one of the biggest decline days, if not the biggest, since 2000 as Wall Street looks set to join the global market sell-off stemming from fears over a U.S. recession and possible global slowdown.

[Update: The Federal Reserve has cut the Fed Funds rate by 75 basis points to 3.5%. With this Fed move, the blow to U.S. stocks could be cushioned somewhat.]

S&P 500 futures were down over 4% (~55 points), the Nasdaq indicated a similar decline with a 70 points drop, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped nearly 480 points. If today is as bad as indicated, U.S. stocks may enter bear-market territory - a loss of over 20% from highs. After the drops from last week, the S&P 500 is nearly 16% below 2007 highs, and the Nasdaq Composite is down about 18%.

Overseas, markets continued the declines from Monday, when U.S. markets were closed. The steep sell-off drove 43 benchmarks into bear market, as tracked by bloomberg.

Weighing on futures were steep selloffs in overseas markets, which plunged Monday amid fears that the U.S. slowdown would spill over to the global economy. In Asia stocks continued plunging with Japan's Nikkei 225 index nose-diving 5.7% - its biggest percentage drop in nearly 10 years, a day after falling 3.9%. Australia's benchmark index sank 7.1%, the market's steepest one-day slide in nearly 20 years. Hong Kong's Hang Seng index, finished down 8.7% after declining 5.5% Monday. In China, the Shanghai Composite index lost 7.2%.

Yet, in Europe, shares seemed to have put on the brakes and recover somewhat from earlier lows as rate-cut hopes by central banks fueled markets. After London's FTSE 100 shed 5.5% Monday and Frankfurt's Dax-30 lost 7.2% of its value, this morning they're off 0.7% and 2.5% respectively.

There are no economic data points due out this morning, but investors seem to have all they can chew at the moment.
Crude-oil futures lost over $3 on Tuesday to below $87 a barrel, also due to recession fears that could hurt demand. February gold contract lost $14.80 to $866.90 an ounce.

Despite the market not being impressed much by the White House's stimulus plan, President Bush and top congressional leaders are due to meet and discuss an agreement to pump as much as $150 billion in tax cuts and government spending into the ailing economy to head off a recession. The market would have liked the plan sooner.

DuPont (NYSE: DD) reported fourth-quarter earnings this morning. Profit fell 37% to $545 million, or 60 cents a share. On an adjusted basis, it earned 57 cents a share, up 27% from last year. Revenue rose 11% to $6.98 billion. Analysts polled by Thomson Financial expected earnings of 49 cents a share on revenue of $6.67 billion.

Also reporting today are Bank of America (NYSE: BAC), Wachovia (NYSE: WB), Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

Tags: aapl, bac, dd, featured, jnj, wb

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

1-22-2008 @ 8:38AM

ausvetdiag said...

We always want to blame the government, the banks, SOMEBODY for our bad decisions. What about personal responsibility. I bought a house I could not afford. I borrowed money on a second mortgage to go on vacation etc.

1-22-2008 @ 9:22AM

Beltway Greg said...

So much for gloom and doom. Gentle Ben finally caved. Here's the deal: In Oct. of 1987 I was sitting in an economics class at the Univ. of Md. listening to the professor doubt the abilities of this new fed chairman named Alan Greenspan. The prof. spoke of the challenges facing Greenspan and how we were heading for a depression based on all of his measures. Truth be told if I had walked from his classroom, dropped out of school and went to work for McDonalds and put all of my money in equities I probably would've had a much higher net worth than I have today. The lesson? McDonalds now offers salads. Everything changes. But the American economy and people are like those boats fighting ever onward against the tide. To paraphrase Bob Seger, "Come back baby the market never forgets."

Beltway Greg
Where's the "Silver Bullet Band" when you need them?

1-22-2008 @ 1:41PM

Boards0000000 said...

Hmmm what's happening? Could it be the global markets tried to shake us out only to have Bernanke with an iron stomach and a poker face call their bluff? The global market sold out our stocks to discount them to cause a sell off here hoping to buy us back reduced with a further reduced dollar and we rallied them right out of the market. If that's the case it goes to show how Americans can fight like dogs and cats amoung themselves but when the global world tries to take us down we rise to the occasion. I'm not sure who bought up the discounted stocks, was it Americans or foreigners, that answer would tell a lot about what is happening. Also, the days volatility isn't over yet. So who knows the pattern that's forming.