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NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global stocks closed their worst quarter in nearly three years on Friday on nagging concerns about the world economy and the lack of a credible solution to Europe‘s debt crisis.
The euro and most commodity prices also fell as investors’ search for safety drove up U.S. government bonds and the dollar.
Adding to a string of global data that has crushed growth-related assets in the past three months, China’s manufacturing sector contracted for a third straight month in September while German retail sales slid at their sharpest pace in more than four years.
An unexpected rise in euro-zone inflation for September also moderated talk that the European Central Bank would cut interest rates. Still, the euro fell sharply to close its worst quarter against the U.S. dollar since mid 2010.
“The combination of sovereign debt crisis, a slowing economy and really what appears to be ineffective leadership in Europe has led to this decline, and we expect that to continue to play out in the fourth quarter,” said Omer Esiner, chief market analyst at Commonwealth Foreign Exchange in Washington.
U.S. stocks fell, closing their worst quarter since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in late 2008 with sharp declines.
The MSCI All Country World Index slumped 18 percent for the quarter, with a drop of 2.3 percent on Friday. It lost roughly $5.29 trillion in market capitalization in the quarter, according to Thomson Reuters Datastream.
On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped 240.60 points, or 2.16 percent, to 10,913.38. The SP 500 fell 28.98 points, or 2.50 percent, to 1,131.42. The Nasdaq Composite slid 65.36 points, or 2.63 percent, to 2,415.40.
U.S. crude oil prices fell 4.1 percent on Friday, down more than 17 percent in the quarter. Copper, a key industrial metal that is a proxy for growth expectations, was down 25.8 percent over the last three months.
“There is a lot of fear that GDP growth is going to slow down, or it’s not going to be as fast as consensus estimates assume,” said Adam Krejcik, an analyst at Roth Capital in Newport Beach, California. “Generally speaking, there is a lot of fear out there, just a crisis of confidence.”
Mining stocks were among the worst performers, hit by the news of slowing growth in China, the world’s second-largest economy and an engine of global growth.
EURO OFF, BONDS FLY AMID THE GLOOM
The euro slipped versus the U.S. dollar and posted its biggest monthly drop in nearly a year, weighed down by the lack of a visible solution to the euro zone’s deepening debt troubles.
The single currency fell to a low of $1.3384 and was last at $1.3392, down 1.5 percent
Article source: here
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors are worried U.S. earnings growth may finally fall back to earth as turmoil in Europe and signs of a less robust Chinese economy hurt foreign support.
The euro zone’s debt crisis and weakness in China have fueled investor concern that the global economy could tip back into recession, possibly dampening U.S. earnings growth at a time when the U.S. economy is still struggling to gain ground.
Overseas sales have helped U.S. companies beat earnings expectations in the last couple of years, with foreign sales totaling 30 percent on average for Standard Poor’s 500 companies.
“If the euro region is crumbling, that’s going to have a tremendous negative impact” on companies like McDonald’s, said Todd Schoenberger, managing director at LandColt Trading in Wilmington, Delaware.
“I’m not expecting a big earnings quarter,” he said. “We’ve been getting the clues already.”
The most recent company to trouble investors about the earnings outlook is Ingersoll Rand Plc, whose shares tumbled 12.1 percent to $28.09 on Friday after the industrial conglomerate cut its third-quarter and full-year earnings forecast to below market estimates.
Investor pessimism is already high.
The SP 500 finished the quarter with its worst performance since 2008, and many strategists have slashed their forecasts for year-end.
The SP 500 dropped 14.3 percent in the third quarter, losing about $1.7 trillion in market capitalization.
A disappointing third-quarter earnings period, which begins the second week of October, could only trigger more losses, analysts said. Stronger-than-expected earnings helped stocks claw back fro 12-year lows in 2009.
Next week, investors also will be bracing for data on the U.S. job market, among the weakest parts of the economy. The government’s September employment report is due Friday, while U.S. manufacturing data from the Institute for Supply Management is due Monday. The ISM services-sector index is set for release on Wednesday.
CURRENCY CUSHION MAY BE THINNER
Companies reporting earnings have benefited for the last decade from weakness in the dollar, which helped overseas revenue figures.
With the euro down 7.4 percent this quarter, the biggest quarterly loss by percentage since mid-2010, companies could lose some of that currency cushion.
“I think you’ll see a lot of companies blaming problems on Europe,” said Justin Walters, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group in Harrison, New York.
Walters said excluding companies that report no international sales, the average percentage of overseas revenue for the SP 500 is 41 percent.
The euro-zone debt crisis has investors worried about a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.
In China, which has been a major engine of growth for the global economy, data has shown some weakness. On Friday, figures showed the country’s manufacturing shrank for the third month in a row
Article source: here
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