US stocks plunge again

Uncertainty in several fronts take market substantially down

It was another ugly day at Wall Street today, Thursday, 20 November, 2008 taking Dow to levels it has not witnessed in last eleven years. There were the current ongoing factors for today's negative sentiment in the market. Citigroup and economic reports mainly weighed on the market. Concerns over the fate of U.S. automakers, disappointing economic data, a yesterday's dour outlook from the Fed and the market's inability to hold its lows fueled the selling interest.

After climbing in and out of positive and negative turf in the early going, the major stock indexes were down decisively in afternoon trades. Selling accelerated in the last hour of trading.

At the end, the Dow Jones industrial average plunged below the 8,000 mark for the first time since 2003 yesterday. Today, the Dow closed down 445 points or 5.1% at 7,552, the Nasdaq shed 70 points or 6.5% to 1,316 and the S&P 500 dropped 54 points or 6.1% to 752.

All the ten sectors ended in the red today. Weakness in the financial sector was widespread. Energy posted the largest decline of the session, though. The steep declines in energy followed losses in crude oil prices. Crude futures fell below $49 per barrel to reach their lowest point in more than three years. The commodity finished the session near its lows.

All thirty Dow stocks ended in the red today. Citigroup and GE were the main Dow laggards. GE stocks dipped to a decade low.

Citigroup continued to be badly hammered today after the bank announced yesterday that it took on more than $17 billion in assets from structured investment vehicles and shut another hedge fund. The stock dropped by another 25% today to almost $5.

For tomorrow, retailers will dominate earnings announcements tomorrow morning. Among economic reports, initial jobless claims for the week ended 15 November is due before opening bell followed by leading economic indicators for October. The November Philadelphia Fed Index is also due at the same time as the economic indicators report.

Among economic reports for the day, the Labor Department in US reported today, Thursday, 20 November, 2008, that first-time filings for unemployment benefits shot up to their highest level since July 1992 for the week ended 14 November, 2008. It rose 27,000 to a seasonally adjusted 542,000. Meanwhile, the number of people receiving benefits rose to 4.01 million in the week, the highest level in 26 years.

The four-week average of claims also climbed in the latest week, rising by 15,750 to 506,500. That was the highest since January 1983. The insured unemployment rate increased to 3.0% from 2.9%.

Treasury Secretary Paulson stated in a speech today that market stress is clearly continuing and that maintaining stability throughout the recovery process remains top priority. He noted that transparency of market risk must be a higher priority, as it relates to financial products.

Uncertainty continued to hover around auto makers. While some reports indicated that senators have reached a bipartisan auto aid agreement with wide support, some others indicated that the likelihood that a bill is approved and passed in the immediate future is slim. One senator said