US stocks sharply down in early trade; Dow tumbles 280 pts
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US stocks plunged in the opening trade today and Dow Jones slid 282 points as investor concerns resurfaced about America's economic health, overshadowing optimism over the Fed's decision to continue with low interest rates to spur growth.
The benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average crashed 282 points to below the 11,000 mark. The key index was trading at 10,956.83 points, down over 2.5 per cent.
The broader S&P 500 was also deep in the red, shedding over two per cent at 1,144.44 points, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite tumbled nearly three per cent at 2,415.60.
The Federal Reserve yesterday decided to maintain its benchmark interest rates at near-zero levels for a longer time and cautioned that economic growth is lower than expected.
On Tuesday, Dow had rallied to close at 11,239.77.
Even though, investors cheered the Fed announcement, the optimism seemed to peter out with Friday's downgrade of US creditworthiness by ratings agency S&P and European debt contagion coming back to haunt investors.
In the afternoon trade, European stock markets were in the negative territory with major indices such as France's Cac 40 plummeting over two per cent.
After being battered for the past two trading sessions, most of the Asian stocks recovered their lost ground and ended the day with substantial gains.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng climbed over two per cent to close at 19,783.67 points and Japanese benchmark Nikkei 225 went up more than one per cent to end at 9,038.74 points.
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