US markets suffer sharpest one day plunge in the year

07 Mar 2012 Evaluate

The US markets ended lower on Tuesday, making their biggest drop this year, sending the Dow to a triple-digit loss, after a report showed Europe’s economy contracted and as investors watched developments in a Greece debt-swap deal. Investor fears about the impact of a disorderly Greek bond default which again returned to market that had recently put Europe-crisis concerns on the back burner. The European market were nervous on report that the Institute of International Finance, a trade group that helped negotiate the terms of Greece’s bond swap with its private-sector holders, had warned in a recent memo that a disorderly default could cause more than 1 trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) in damage to the euro zone.

In recent days, concerns have grown that few private bondholders will participate in Greece’s bond swap, known as the PSI, which is set to conclude Thursday. A hard default, or one where Greece isn’t able to restructure its debt, would likely derail Greece’s second bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. The private sector Greek bond swap has attracted so far 20% participation and Greece is looking for at least 75% rate. A disorderly default on Greek bonds will do more harm if private investors fail to agree to debt swap terms. Besides, Europe’s economy shrank 0.3 percent last quarter, the European Union’s statistics office stated.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed lower by 203.66 points, or 1.57 percent, at 12,759.20. The S&P 500 lost 20.97 points, or 1.54 percent, at 1,343.36, while the Nasdaq was down by 40.16 points, or 1.36 percent, at 2,910.32.

Indian ADRs closed in red on Tuesday, ICICI Bank was down 1.81%, Infosys Technologies was down 1.32%, Tata Motors was down 1.10%, HDFC Bank was down 1.06% and Dr. Reddy’s Lab was down 0.71%.

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