Stocks Can't Stop Bleeding

Stocks continued their march downward at the open today, following a wave of selloffs around the globe. The Dow dropped 136 points, after closing at a six-year low yesterday. The S&P plunged 1.8%, while the Nasdaq was off 1.1%. Yesterday’s US losses triggered a wave of global selling, with the FTSE 100 down 2.6%, the Dow Jones Stoxx 50 down more than 3%, and Japan’s Topix hitting a 20-year low.

“It is difficult to know whether the latest falls are another move to a new bear phase or just a clear out of weakly held speculative longs built up over the last few months,” said one analyst. “It has been reasonably simple for traders to deal with the price ranges for the recent weeks and months, and this latest move might just be a lesson to these speculators that making money is not [and never will be] this easy." (More stock market stories.)