Difficult week for stock markets

Traders worry about next week after this week's scare story

The world's stock markets have taken a beating this week with bourses reaching lows not seen for years.

Losses in the US stock markets

Dow Jones
7.7% (week)
8.9% (year)

Nasdaq
7.9% (week)
23.5% (year)

S&P
6.7% (week)
12.9% (year)

The high-tech stock exchange Nasdaq in New York closed below 1,900, after a week when dealers spent much of their time lamenting a fall below 2,000.

The blue-chip Dow Jones industrial averages index closed below 9,900. Here traders had bemoaned the index falling below 10,000.

It has been a week of almost uninterrupted losses. The Dow Jones index closed at its lowest level for a year, the Nasdaq index at its lowest for 28 months and the broader Standard & Poor's at a 27-month low.

A slight lift for Europe's stock markets and for the Dow Jones index during Thursday were wiped out by bad news announcements from the giant technology firms Oracle and Compaq after US trading ended.

Only Tokyo ended the day marginally higher on Friday, though shares were sharply down on the week here too.

Investors were scurrying for cover, even though nobody seemed to know where to hide.

Bleak prospects

Investors remain wary after a series of big falls caused by worries about the US economic slowdown hitting company profits - and huge declines in the valuations of internet and telecom firms.

In recent weeks, because so many telecoms companies have issued warnings about their profitability, it has become perceived as the norm.

So much so that when Nokia said it would not issue a profit warning on Thursday, a party broke out and shares in both the mobile phone maker and other high-tech firms soared.

But bad news quickly returned, as did the gloom hanging over the stock markets.

The numbers

The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 207 points at 9,823 points.

The Nasdaq fell almost 50 points to 1,891.

Markets close

Dow Jones
9,823

Nasdaq
1,891

FTSE-100, London
5,562

Dax, Frankfurt
5,738

Cac 40, Paris
5,105

The Standard & Poor's 500 index fell 23 points.

In London, the FTSE-100 index lost all Thursday's gains then fell even further to close down 166 points at 5562.

The German blue-chip Dax index also shed 151 points to close at 5,738.

The Cac-40 index ended at its lowest level so far in 2001, losing 1.41% to close at 5,105.

Tokyo weathers bad news

Only Tokyo's stock market defied the stream of bad news, clinging onto early albeit small gains.

Japanese stocks also managed to weather an admission from the government in a monthly report that the country's economy was stalling.

The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average closed up 80 points, or 0.66%, at 12,232.

On the rebound

Shares in Japanese banks led Tokyo's recovery on Friday.

They bounced back from steep falls as investors became more hopeful that the banks would be able to clean up their balance sheets.

The announcement on Thursday of a merger of Sanwa Bank, Tokai Bank and Toyo Trust & Banking to form UFJ group was greeted positively.

Sanwa shares soared almost 10%, while Tokai Bank and Toyo Trust both jumped over 8%.

Hopes that the Bank of Japan would lower interest rates also boosted the banking sector.