By DPA,
New York : Major US stock indices posted heavy losses Thursday as the oil price hit a new record Thursday and financial institutions warned that more writedowns were on the horizon.
Oil rose as high as $140.39 per barrel on the day, after Libya threatened to cut its supply and the leader of OPEC said prices will likely rise even further this summer, the Bloomberg financial news agency reported. Crude oil closed just under 140 dollars, up more than 5 percent.
Stocks on the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted more than 350 points and have lost 9.4 percent since the beginning of this month – the worst June since the Great Depression of 1930, according to Bloomberg.
Goldman Sachs warned that banking giant Citigroup could post another 8.9 billion dollars in mortgage-related writedowns in the second quarter, sparking a broader sell-off of financial shares.
Automaker General Motors suffered its worst one-day drop in three years after Goldman advised investors to sell the stock.
The blue-chip Dow fell 358.41 points, or 3.03 percent, to 11,453.42. The broader Standard & Poor’s 500 dropped 38.82 points, or 2.94 percent, to 1,283.15. The technology-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index was down 79.89 points, or 3.33 percent, to 2,321.37.
The US currency dropped against the euro to 63.49 euro cents from 63.82 euro cents Wednesday. The dollar fell against the Japanese currency to 106.94 yen from 107.87 yen.
Gold surged 32.80 dollars to $915.10 per fine ounce, the highest one-day rise in two years.