Global equity and bond markets endured a painful week at the end of another miserable month; the yen’s sharp fall dominated currency trading last week; oil surged, then eased; and gold took fright and retreated from staying over the $US1, 000 an ounce mark, but then resumed its rise.
The benchmark US share price index, the S&P 500 was down 4.5% for the week and 11% for the month, which is yet another correction in itself.
The Dow dropped 4% over the week after falling through its November lows last week. The index fell 11.7% last month, its sixth straight loss-making month.
The Dow shed 119 points Friday to end at the lowest close since May 1, 1997.
The S&P 500 lost 2.4% on Friday closing at its lowest point since December, 1996.
(President Clinton was still President).
The Nasdaq shed 1% Friday and remains above its lows from November, 2008.
Citigroup’s third bailout and partial nationalisation with the US now owning 36%, didn’t help. Citi shares plunged 37% after the deal with the government was announced.
More than 1.7 billion Citi shares were traded in New York on Friday, the biggest single day’s trading so far in the history of the New York exchange.
In Europe shares fell with the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 Index’s having it sixth straight monthly drop. It lost 1.8% on Friday to take its weekly drop to 2.3%. It lost 9.6% in value in February.
In London The Footsie 100 shed 2.2%. The month’s loss was 7.7% after a weekly fall of 1.5%
Tokyo’s Nikkei rose Friday, despite the bad news on January industrial production down a record 10%. (There was relief it wasn’t a deeper fall.)
The index rose 1.5% and was up 2.1% for the week (a rare gain), but still shed 5.3% in value last month.
Australia’s ASX 200 shed 5.4% last month after losing 4.9% in January. The index ended February on 3345.5
The All Ords was down by around 5.2% and closed Friday at 3296.9.
Both indexes lost 1.7% for the week.
It was the 6th monthly loss.
And there won’t be much help today: after Wall Street’s sharp fall Friday night to those 12 year lows, our market will be off by more than 1% at the start.
Looking at February, not much to say about the month: it was reporting time and the performers were mixed.
Heavy equipment group, Emeco rose 76% (from a low), Paperlinx bounced 56%. Fortescue 49%, NEW Holdings 43% and Gloucester Coal 39%. Nothing to write home about there.
The losers were more instructive: Goodman group down 63%, AWB, 60%, Asciano, 60%, Tishman Speyer, 55% and Alesco, 54%.
Not much support for property, infrastructure and building products.
