By Gavin Adamson
(May 3 – 17:30 ET) – North American markets tumbled today on renewed interest-rate jitters.
The Beige Book, a monthly report on the U.S. economy, released by the U.S. Federal Reserve, indicated that labour markets are tight, pushing wages up. Speculation is mounting that the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee will bump the interest rate up 50-basis points when it meets in two weeks.
Consequently, the Dow Jones composite dropped 250.99 points to 10,480.13. Goldman & Sachs lowered its rating on many in the retail sector. Wal-Mart and Home Depot led the index downwards. And 67 of 88 retailers on the Standard & Poor’s 500 slipped, bringing that index down to 1415.10, down 31.19 points. More than two stocks dropped for every one that gained on the NYSE.
On the tech side, Oracle and Cisco were hit by the economic news. Novell was doubly hurt with an earnings warning. NASDAQ declines outplayed gains by 28 to 11, and the index sunk by 78 points to 3,707.32.
It was much the same story on the TSE 300 composite index, which was sunk by BCE and Nortel. Other tech plays, like JDS Uniphase, Certicom and Sierra Wireless joined on the way down.
On the upside, Anderson Exploration was among the oil & gas stocks that pushed upwards on continued upward crude pressure heading into the summer months.
The CDNX dropped 67.35 points to 3,530.78, led by a 3.4% drop in its technology sub-sector.