Dow hits lowest close in 5 years

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Source: CCTV.com | 10-10-2008 08:38

Beginning with US stocks which plummeted Thursday for a seventh straight session.

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock exchange. US shares plunged to fresh five-year lows Thursday in a vicious late-date selloff as jitters intensified over the global financial crunch.(AFP/Getty Images/Spencer Platt)

Analysts say investors are betting that recent moves by authorities worldwide to thaw frozen credit markets won't be enough to avert a global recession.

An avalanche of selling at the close left the Dow below 86 hundred for the first time since May 2003. The Nasdaq and the SP 500 each also fell to levels not seen in more than five years.

The steep declines came exactly one year after the Dow's all-time closing high of above 14 thousand. The Dow Average has lost over 22 hundred points in the last seven trading days, the worst ever in such a period.

Bank and insurance stocks also got hammered. Analysts say Wednesday's global interest-rate cuts, and other official actions to unfreeze money markets, have clearly failed to boost confidence in the financial sector.

Some traders say the lifting of the ban on bets that financial stocks will drop may have also contributed to the sell-off.

Editor:Zhang Pengfei