(As of 7:20 am PST)
US stocks are plummeting at today’s open as overnight
developments in China sent most global equity markets lower. Fresh regulation
out of China was announced early Friday which tightened the regulations on
margin lending at major brokerages throughout China. Simultaneously, China’s
two stock exchanges announced they would make it easier for traders to short
Chinese securities, adding another 1,000 stocks to the list available for short selling.
The move is seen as an effort to reign in an overheated Chinese market allowing
investors easier access to betting on a stock market pullback. Asian markets
finished the day mostly lower with index futures down heading into the weekend.
European markets traded the China news lower while investors also continued to
fret over a potential Greek default. Adding to the selling pressure Friday was
an outage of worldwide Bloomberg trading terminals, which shut down access to
trading for nearly 315,000 worldwide subscribers of the professional
service. US economic data is light today
with a report on consumer sentiment beating expectations. With today’s selling it
looks as though markets are set to finish with weekly losses for the first time
in three weeks.
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