Off the wire
• Feature: Uganda's unbanked rush for mobile money services  • 1st LD Writethru: Oil prices rise amid geopolitical risk  • U.S. posts hefty bounty on four key IS figures  • Good day for seeds in Madrid as big guns prepare for debut  • Clashes leave 15 injured in Burundi amid protests against president' s third term  • Slovak economy in best shape since financial crisis: FinMin  • Urgent: U.S. stocks tumble following global rout  • Denmark receives 3 bomb threats in one day: media  • Egypt, Spain sign MoU on military cooperation  • Portugal's economic growth forecast revised up  
You are here: 　 Home

1st LD Writethru: U.S. stocks tumble following global rout

Xinhua, May 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

U.S. stocks suffered big losses on Tuesday as investors pondered over impacts of global market sell- offs.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 142.20 points, or 0.79 percent, to 17,928.20. The S&P 500 dropped 25.03 points, or 1.18 percent, to 2,089.46. The Nasdaq Composite Index slumped 77.60 points, or 1.55 percent, to 4,939.33.

Overseas stock markets witnessed broad-based sharp declines Tuesday. European shares slumped as investors kept an eye on the ongoing Greece bailout drama, with German benchmark DAX index at the Frankfurt Stock Exchange diving 2.51 percent.

In Asia, Chinese Shanghai Composite Index plunged more than 4 percent Tuesday, as acceleration of IPOs and news that a few domestic stockbrokerage companies had upswung their margin guarantee ratios for margin trade triggered market concerns over liquidity tension.

Dampening investor sentiment, U.S. trade deficit data came in more than expected.

The country's international trade deficit in goods and services increased to 51.4 billion U.S. dollars in March from a revised level of 35.9 billion dollars in February, as imports increased more than exports, said the Department of Commerce Tuesday.

"The March trade deficit was the widest of the expansion to date, but it will be smaller in April. The average deficit in Q1 wasn't much worse than in Q4. This reflected the strength of the dollar, which has increased Americans' appetite for imports while diminishing the foreign appetite for U.S. made goods," said Chris Low, chief economist at FTN Financial, in a note.

The Non-Manufacturing Index registered 57.8 percent in April, 1. 3 percentage points higher than the March reading of 56.5 percent, said the Institute for Supply Management in its monthly survey.

In corporate news, the Walt Disney Company reported earnings of 2.1 billion dollars for its second fiscal quarter ended March 28, 2015, beating market consensus. Diluted earnings per share for the second quarter increased 14 percent to 1.23 dollars from 1.08 dollars in the prior-year quarter. Its shares edged down 0.20 percent to 110.81 dollars Tuesday.

Latest data from Thomson Reuters showed that the S&P 500 companies' blended earnings in the first quarter of 2015 are expected to increase 1.8 percent year on year, while the revenue is forecast to decrease 2.8 percent. Endite