For more news visit ☛ http://english.ntdtv.com
Follow us on Twitter ☛ http://twitter.com/NTDTelevision
Follow us on Facebook ☛ http://facebook.com/NTDTelevision
Wall Street falls sharply in midday trading as worries persist over the U.S. economy. Investor anxiety about France's banking sector also rattles the markets on fears that trouble in France could affect the U.S.
Wall Street stocks fell sharply on Wednesday, erasing most of the previous day's gains.
The drop comes among fears of trouble in the French banking sector, with significant exposure to shaky European debt.
The KBW bank index slid 7 percent. Large financial institutions fell sharply, including Bank of America down 11.2 percent to $6.76 (USD).
Societe General fell 21 percent and BNP Paribas lost 13 percent.
[Peter Kenny, Managing Director, Institutional Sales, Knight Capital Group]:
"I would say that the mood is pervasively negative. There is a very real sense of fear in the overall market. The trading floor is operating as it always does with a great deal of calm, but there is fear in the market and it is being driven by multiple points which lead to a sense that there is a lack of calm in global markets."
Stocks rallied on Tuesday after the Federal Reserve promised to keep interest rates near zero for at least two more years.
The S&P 500 index had its best performance in more than two years.
But even after Tuesday's snap-back rally, the S&P 500 is down nearly 18 percent since a peak at the start of May.
[Peter Kenny, Managing Director, Institutional Sales, Knight Capital Group]:
"What would help this market an enormous amount would be if the United States took the lead in fiscal austerity, Congress came back to Washington and hammered out a large deal that speaks to entitlements, spending reform, entitlement reform - a real hard-edged, hard-nosed approach to re-engineering this systemic problem that not just the United States, but much of the developed world has."
