American financial markets suffered a sharp plummet this morning immediately upon opening.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average opened at 11,406 today, but saw a sharp drop to below the 11,000 mark within nearly an hour. Before seeing a slight resurgence, the Dow showed a decline of over 500 points.
In addition to a drop in the DJIA, Nasdaq stock saw a decline of nearly 5 percent this morning as well. Standard Poor’s 500 Index was down as well, showing a drop of 54.46 points, or 4.56 percent, early on after the NYSE opened.
Experts are pegging the panic on Wall Street on the recent release of statistics that are only the latest figures that are worrying Americans over a worsening US economy. The government saw an unexpected rise in unemployment benefit claims last weeks, and the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank announced that its business activity index had dropped significantly to minus 30.7; a Reuters poll had previously predicted numbers to be on the positive side.
Before US markets could open this morning, the downward trend was kicked-off out east, where Asian markets began the day with a dramatic drop. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.3 percent following the announcement that the county’s export tally for July had shown a significant drop from 2010’s statistics.