Markets sell-off

The list of casualties was long as the Toronto stock market, the TSX Venture Exchange, gold, oil and the Canadian dollar all got thumped during a day of heavy losses. Following back-to-back triple-digit losses to close out last week, the S&P/TSX composite index lost 206.34, plunging below the 12,000-mark to close at 11,831.73. The TSX, which hit a closing high of 12,343.02 on April 6, had been down almost 300 points earlier in the day before it clawed back some of the loss.

The gold market was also touched by the volatility, as the price of the precious metal tumbled $26.80 US to finish at $685 US an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The 4% fall is the lowest level gold has dropped to since it climbed above $700 last week.

And the losses continued to pile on the price of oil, as well. The June contract for light, sweet crude on the NYMEX sank $2.63 US to settle at $69.41 US a barrel. The price of crude has dropped more than $4 US over the last two days of trading.

channelnewsasia.com :

Singapore stocks saw their largest drop in nearly three years on Monday, triggered by two days of sharp falls on Wall Street. The benchmark Straits Times Index shed 85.75 points, or 3.3 percent, to end at 2,534,83, just a week or so after hitting all-time record highs.

From the opening bell, Singapore stocks fell like nine pins, with more than 1.8 billion shares changing hands. The Vesak Day public holiday on Friday only made matters worse, as local stocks played catch-up with their US counterparts. Among those hardest hit were DBS and Keppel Corp, which saw their prices shaved by over 5 percent.

- Alarms blaring. Bears prowling. Blood on the streets. Everybody is pointing a finger at everything and anything - the Fed rate hikes, "catching up" with Wall Street, effect of commodity prices on economic "growth", fund managers "shouting fire in a crowded theatre" and rushing for the exits ...

Meanwhile, on my end, my trigger to buy back into a certain resource stock went off - two weeks ahead of schedule. A colleague remarked that the "Great Singapore Sale" has started early, with SGD $16 billion wiped off the SGX in recent trading. But, *snort*, I could hardly care less for the local markets. Me, I'm standing in line for the "Great Canadian Sale", half a world away ...

(2006-05-16 13:49:56 SGT) [Biz] Permalink

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