Monday, June 25, 2012

Wall Street tumbles on European summit skepticism

Stocks fell sharply, putting the S&P 500 near break-even for June so far, as investors saw little reason to be optimistic about a European Union summit this week.

The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 137.97 points, or 1.09 percent, to 12,502.81. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index lost 21.30 points, or 1.60 percent, to 1,313.72. The Nasdaq Composite Index declined 56.26 points, or 1.95 percent, to 2,836.16.

A leading European share index posted its biggest one-day fall in more than three weeks as concerns that a European Union summit will fail to tackle the region's debt crisis prompted a broad-based retreat, led by banking stocks.

The FTSEurofirst 300 index provisionally fell 1.5 percent to 987 points, its biggest daily fall since a 1.9 percent drop on June 1.

In Asia, the Nikkei share average fell on global jitters. The Nikkei dropped 0.7 percent to 8,734.62, falling below i ts five-day moving average at 8,753.04, while the broader Topix ended 0.8 percent lower to 745.22.