FXStreet (Guatemala) – The market turmoil continues on a day where the POBoC surprised the markets with cuts to the deposit rate by 25bps to 1.75% and lending interest rates by 25bps to 4.60% after cutting their RRR by 50bps to 18.00% with additional cuts for individual sectors.
The previous moves on the PBoC had already started to offer some relief to the financial markets that had already started to recover in Europe with the pan-European Euro Stoxx 600 extended gains to trade 4.58% higher at 358 levels.
However, U.S. stocks closed lower today on continued risk aversion while they had tried to recover earlier in the session, but failed, as seen in the Dow that suffered its worst 3-day decline in history.
Both the Dow and the S&P closed nearly 1.5% lower after rallying about 3 percent earlier on the session. The S&P 500 closed below 1,900 and the Dow fell 205 points as we approached the close of the session in a final flurry of activity for the US trading day, just as investors were hoping for some stability and traction. The Nasdaq Composite also closed down and by 0.44 percent.
The euro rallied in to the close by over a cent in the last trading hour on to the 1.15 handle, while the Yen took up its safe haven status yet again and lost the 119 handle to the bears.
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)