THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Wall Street fell 2pc on Tuesday as a global stock market sell-off intensified with investors dumping shares in a flight to safety, panicked by Japan's growing nuclear crisis.
The Dow Jones Industrial Index dropped 2.3pc - or 280 points - to 11,699.96 within minutes of opening, with shares seen as exposed to the disaster sliding. Insurer AIG fell 4pc and General Electric fell 5pc.
European bourses were dragged lower. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 2.6pc - or 154 points - to a fresh year low of 5622.53 at 1.30pm in London, wiping around £32bn off the value of the blue-chip index. Germany's DAX plunged 4.8pc and France's CAC 3.9pc.
The fall followed a 10.6pc dive - 14pc at one stage - in Japan's Nikkei after the government warned of dangerous levels of radiation following a third explosion at the earthquake-damaged Fukushima nuclear plant. The benchmark index ended down 1,015.34 points at 8,605.15, while the broader Topix plunged 9.5pc in its worst two-day fall since 1987.
This caused a ripple effect through Asia, Europe and the United States as investors reassessed the impact of last Friday's earthquake and tsunami and the growing nuclear disaster on a fragile global economy.
Brent crude dropped $4.80 to $108.93 a barrel in London and fell below $100 in New York as markets bet on a dramatic loss of demand for oil from the world's third largest economy.
"Last night’s move was the third worst decline in the Nikkei’s history and there’s fear that there could be more to come," said Simon Denham, the managing director of Capital Spreads. » | Tuesday, March 15, 2011
