In stock markets, investors unleashed a wave of selling across the board in Europe and the United States. In Europe, the major indexes ended down around 2 percent. Wall Street opened sharply lower and never recovered, pushing the broader market deeper into negative territory for the year. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index ended down 3.7 percent, or 46.82 points, at 1,229.10. As interest rates on Italian bonds peaked at about 7.48 percent, the European Central Bank intervened by buying the debt, traders said, causing rates to fall back slightly. But this latest phase of Europe's financial crisis is putting a new focus on the central bank, with many expecting it to have to act more aggressively in buying Italian debt than it has so far. The euro tumbled, and Spanish and French bond yields also rose amid fears that the contagion could spread further. However, some gauges of credit market stress did not worsen markedly on the day. And analysts said Italy is a stronger economy than
Raymond Clough dnomyar34@raymondclough.com
Huffington Post UK - 10 hours ago The collapse of confidence in Italy's economy has created a hazardous situation for the world economy, analysts said on Wednesday, as the Berlusconi government's failure to reassure markets pushed yields on its 10-year government bonds past 7%. |
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