Bad but not awful: That's the way the stock market reaction is looking at the start of trading on Monday, on the first day of trading since Standard & Poor's cut the U.S. credit rating by one notch and unleashed a new round of global uncertainty.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 222 points or 1.9 per cent, to 11,222. The broader S&P 500 fell 25 points or 2.1 per cent, to 1174. (To put these numbers into perspective, keep in mind that the Dow fell more than 500 points on Thursday.) In Canada, the S&P/TSX composite index fell 345 points or 2.8 per cent, to 11,817.
The declines were broad and hit economically sensitive stocks the hardest. Among U.S stocks, Bank of America Corp. slumped 8.3 per cent, Alcoa Inc. fell 4.9 per cent and General Electric Co. fell 3.5 per cent.
Some defensive stocks actually showed modest gains, with Wal-Mart Stores Inc. up 0.3 per cent and Coca-Cola Co. up less than 0.1 per cent.
Among Canadian stocks, commodity producers were hit the hardest. Suncor Energy Inc. and Teck Resources Ltd. fell 4.4 per cent each.
David Berman