U.S. Stocks Take a Nosedive as Euro Worries Rise

Posted on May 20, 2010

AP / Daniel Roland

The sun glints on the euro symbol outside the European Central Bank tower in Frankfurt, Germany.

The Icelandic volcano isn’t the only problem blowing over from Europe, judging by Thursday’s dismal stock market dive, touched off in part by problems in the euro zone as well as homegrown concerns about the American government’s plans for financial regulation.  —KA

The New York Times:

At the close, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 376.36 points, or 3.6 percent, at 10,068.01. The Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index was down 43.46 points, or 3.9 percent, at 1,071.59 and the Nasdaq composite was down 94.36 points, or 4.1 percent, at 2,204.01.

Indexes in Europe and Asia were all lower.

New measures in Germany to ban naked short selling, uncertainty over financial regulation in the United States and persistent Euro zone troubles ganged up with Thursday’s disappointing jobless claims and signs of lagging economic indicators to smother any optimism about corporate results or signs of a recovery that might have lifted sentiment.

Read more

More Below the Ad

New and Improved Comments

We are launching a major overhaul of our comments section.

In addition to more robust spam filtering and moderation, new features include the ability to rate other comments, sort how they are displayed and respond directly via e-mail or in a thread.

Unfortunately, commenters will lose their existing Truthdig identities. It's a pain, we know, but on the plus side you will now be able to log in with a plethora of options, including Google, Twitter, Facebook and Disqus accounts.

Before launching this system we spent months in discussion with our top commenters. We listened to the feedback and we hope you like what we've come up with.

Please direct any problems or concerns to us via our contact page.