Another triple-digit loss on Friday is no longer news

Friday, Asian and European markets plunged. Early morning on Friday it looked ugly for our market. How ugly , futures were limit down and electronic future market was closed. Sentiments were so negative that , to calm investors, the New York Stock Exchange had to confirm in the morning that it would open as usual. There were lot of rumors of 1000 point plus drop in the morning session, triggering circuit breakers, closing the market for some time and so on.

At the opening, the market plunged by around 550 points. What everyone anticipated did not materialize. So the market spent rest of the day going sideways and in final hours putting together a small rally to end down around 300 point. For some reason, people did not panic, and the Dow bounced off its early-morning lows. Another triple-digit loss on Friday is no longer news in these volatile times.

In the United States, where the crisis began, investors were less alarmed than elsewhere. A rout in Asian and European stock markets sent the Dow Jones industrial average swooning by more than 500 points in early trading in New York, but trading recovered enough ground through the day to leave the Dow down 312.30 points, or 3.6 percent.

Just a year ago, a drop of that size would have been considered a black day in the markets, but in these days of routine triple-digit declines, it offered a modicum of relief to traumatized investors.

Today again we are looking at a ugly action in overseas market. Let us see what happens after the open.