| S&P 500 off to worst start ever to a year |
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| - The Guardian | |
| 01/08/2008 | |
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By Leslie Adler (The Guardian Unlimited) The Standard & Poor's 500 index's 5.32 percent drop in the first five days of 2008 marks the worst start to a year ever for the benchmark U.S. equity index, an S&P official said on Tuesday. The S&P has more than erased its 3.5 percent 2007 gain. A surprise contraction in manufacturing coupled with a dismal employment report have boosted fears the U.S. economy is on the edge of a recession, slamming major stock indexes since the beginning of the year. "This is the worst start to a year in S&P history," Howard Silverblatt, senior index analyst at Standard & Poor's in New York, told Reuters. The S&P fell 25.99 points, or 1.84 percent, on Tuesday to 1,390.19, its lowest daily closing level since March 2007 after a warning by phone company AT&T of soft consumer spending due to the economic slowdown ignited the latest round of recession fears. "It's looking pretty ugly. This is really not a very good sign at all. At the very least it is going to lead to a very bumpy first quarter," said Bruce Zaro, chief technical strategist with Delta Global Advisors in Boston. |
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