North American markets suffered another brutal day of sell-offs, with declines coming in across the board as traumatized investors spent one more trading session running for the exits.
In the U.S., the S&P 500 index sank 3.3% to 819.85 points, the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 2.9% to 7,784.58 points and the Nasdaq composite fell 2.8% to 1,282.65 points.
Today’s scandale du jour was a suspicion, published in the Washington Post, that megabank Citigroup and other banks helped conceal Enron’s loans. Oh, and Worldcom announced the biggest bankruptcy-protection filing in history over the weekend.
Looking over trading data from the past five years, technicians are noting that the S&P 500 has now formed a perfect head and shoulders formation, signaling that a major reversal has occurred.
Like every other international bourse, the Canadian markets followed the U.S. lead today, with the TSX composite index tracking down 2.6% to 6,366.67 points and the TSX Venture composite index dropping 1.3% to 1,088.49 points.
While gold prices ended the day in New York relatively unchanged at US$323 per oz., the gold stocks were hit hard by the same selling waves that struck the larger market: Barrick Gold sank 5.4% to $25.21, Placer Dome withered almost 9% to $9.75, Anglogold dropped 8% to US$25.46, Gold Fields plummeted 9.5% to US$11.35, Newmont Mining retreated 2% to US$40.04 and Kinross Gold slipped 3.7% to $3.15.
The high-quality base metal stocks were no place to hide from the market carnage, either.
Among the ‘big five’: Rio Tinto dropped 5% to US$68.51; Phelps Dodge retreated 6.5% to US$433.14 ; Anglo American fell 6.6% to US$15; Alcoa declined 8% to US$24.85; and BHP Billiton managed to ease off only 7 cents to US$10.60.
In Canada, Alcan was whacked 8.1% to $43.89, Inco fell 7.5% to $27.70, Noranda slumped 4.8% to $16.33, and Teck Cominco gave up 2.9% to close at $11.90.
On the TSX Venture Exchange, Edmonton-based Western Pacific Gold closed flat at 3 on 738,000 shares. The company holds the D’Aguilar gold project, 150 km north west of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. At last report the junior was reassessing all of the existing data and gearing up to perform a drill program on the property.
American Bonanza Gold Mining closed down a penny to 17 on 459,226 shares traded. The company has $2 million set aside for advancing the Copperstone project in Arizona, which hosts an estimated total resource of 2.1 million tons grading 0.58 oz. gold per ton.
International Wayside Gold Mines closed up 2 to 22 on 347,000 shares. The company tabled assay results from four diamond drill holes completed on Island Mountain near Wells, British Columbia. The best results are associated with quartz veins within the Rainbow unit. The best results were encountered in hole IGM-02, which cut 1 ft grading 0.567 oz, gold per ton and 1 ft. grading 2.014 oz. gold. Hole IGM-04 cut 6 ft grading 0.203 oz gold.
Be the first to comment on "Broad markets crushed, again"